On our way to Leicester Square, we stepped into St. James’s Park for a few minutes to have a look at a bridge we could see from the Mall. There were dozens of birds in an around the water including some very overfed looking pigeons and some creatures that appeared to be a blend of pigeon and duck which had green feet and red eyes.
I took pictures from the bridge of some black swans gliding along...
...and from the other side of the park I tried to zoom in on some really large birds that looked like a cross between a pelican and a really fluffy egret.
We continued our walk up the Mall and through Trafalgar Square, and in front of the National Gallery we passed an ice sculpture of a polar bear.
I turned us down a side street that I remembered from the map and was just about to second guess myself when we entered Leicester Square and found the TKTS booth. It was about 9:15 by this time, and we soon discovered that the booth wasn’t going to open until 10, so we took this opportunity to get in line and pick a show. Wicked was not available, so we went with a showing of Avenue Q which was even better since it started at 5 instead of 2:30. Planning our Saturday had been a bit of trouble because the museums don’t open until 9 or 10, and they generally close between 4 and 6.
10 o’clock finally arrived and Lauren and I got three really good tickets at half price. Take note, bargain shoppers! That squared away, we headed for the National Portrait Gallery, a half a block walk from our location. We took a huge escalator to the third floor and began with the Tudor gallery, over which I geeked thoroughly out. You know that picture of Henry VII that you always see? Well he was there. And right next to him was Elizabeth of York. And there was also Thomas Cranmer, whose chair has this really cool pattern in it, and whose tablecloth is clearly awesome. They had Hans Holbein the Younger’s gigantic cartoon for the Whitehall Mural hanging, and if you go right up to it you can see all of the knotwork on his trim drawn out. It’s pretty awesome. Nearby was the portrait of Mary I than I’m sure you’ve seen before, and if you look closely, you see that her underdress/chemise-y thing is almost identical to the one that Catherine Parr is wearing in her portrait on the other side of the room. The two were painted about a year apart, and that is not the only similarity between them. I was way more excited about this than a normal person would have been, and Lauren was amused.
The next room had Elizabeth’s coronation portrait, among others. I had a look at the map in the Ditchley portrait and found that her hem comes down just north of Bristol. Sir Francis Drake was there, and there was a really cool painting of Sir Henry Unton’s life story. In this painting of Mary, Queen of Scots, I had a look at the lace on her right cuff. One of the points has been painted over as part of her hand. How cool is that? Also in this room was a portrait of John Donne, who wrote poems about getting dumped. The caption for his portrait most amusingly noted that his collar had been left undone to convey poetic melancholy.
In the many galleries we wandered through, portraits of note included Flora MacDonald in the Jacobean Room and George Washington in Room 14 not far from a huge portrait of King George III, at which I shook my fist, just because it felt appropriate. I enjoyed reading the captions of the portraits in this room, which were mainly of people involved in “the conflict in the American colonies,” which is known to some of us as the American Revolution. Reading one’s own history from someone else’s perspective really gives a fuller understanding of how it fits in the world.
Padma called us about halfway through our tour of the NPG and requested our location. We told him we were in room 17 and sat down on a bench to wait. He called us not long after and wanted to know if we were sure we were in room 17, as room 17 was blocked off and couldn’t be entered. Turns out, he was in the National Gallery, which is next door to the National Portrait Gallery, and after straightening this out he found us, no problem.
The rooms in the National Portrait Gallery are arranged chronologically, and I found it interesting to watch as the subjects of the portraits changed. At first, only pictures of royalty and important court figures were available. Soon, other political figures were painted, and then military heroes and advisors, and then there was this movement that included actresses, courtesans, musicians and poets. Among these people were George Eliot and Kitty Fisher, whose name is worked into her picture. The Regency galleries included portraits of the mistresses of the crown, and in one portrait, the child of that indiscretion. Keats, Coleridge and Wordsworth were all there, and so was the little drawing of Jane Austen done by her sister Cassandra. One of the 19th century rooms included albumen prints of actresses, ballerinas and Oscar Wilde.
Twentieth century portraits included, as one might expect, rather a lot of people involved in the World Wars. Also included was Emmeline Pankhurst, a suffragette who just looks like someone I would want to know. Through this gallery, the art became less and less structured and it was interesting to see that happen only through portraits. Amy Johnson, a lady aviator, was pictured, and so were Beatrix Potter, Aldous Huxley and T.S. Eliot. My favourite portrait in this gallery was of Sir Alexander Fleming, the fellow who discovered penicillin, who is painted working with an agar plate at a cluttered bench.
Padma went for a spin through the galleries upstairs that he hadn’t seen, and Lauren went to investigate the museum shop. I took a tour through the Twiggy display, which included many of the shots that America’s Next Top Model featured when she was guest judging on the show. The NPG is currently featuring a “Beatles to Bowie” rock portraits and memorabilia exhibit that I intend to hit up next time I visit, which will hopefully be with Tamsin. By the time I made it through all of the contemporary displays Lauren had finished in the shop and Padma was just coming down the stairs. We turned to the door just in time to see a cloudburst ending, and this perfect timing could not be wasted. The three of us set out for the British Museum and maybe something to eat.
I love reading about our day! It was fabulous ^_^
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