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DCfolk, take note
One time maybe two, two and a half years ago, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sebastienne and I spent a day in London that included a wander through the National Portrait Gallery. I really like portraits when they're made interesting, which one way to do that is to have generations' (or in this case centuries') worth of portraits all in the same place, so you can see how the styles -- of hair, clothing, posing, painting -- in conventional portraits change. Another way is to have unconventional portraits, of course. The NPG has both, so I was pretty happy. I remember noting that the modern equivalent of the old portraits, where everyone posed the subject the same way until someone did it differently, and then before long everyone was doing it the new way, is the magazine cover. For a while, all the cover models have their hands on their hips. Then someone does that hip-shot one-knee-cocked thing, and pretty soon everyone's doing it. The girls and the clothes change, but not the poses.
Anyway. At the end of my trek through the gallery, in a big white marble room on the ground floor, was a picture of Dame Judi Dench that just plain stopped me in my tracks. It's not easy to describe what's so remarkable about it, so I'll just try to describe the picture itself -- Dame Judi is standing, with her arms at her sides and her weight on her left foot, in brown leather trousers and clunky boots and a knee-length cream-colored coat, with that cap of white hair. That's it. There's no background, no floor, no walls, it's just cream-and-brown-and-white on white and about ten feet tall, and she looks fantastic, and I remember just standing and looking at it for whole minutes and thinking that this must be the best picture of Judi Dench I have ever seen.
Some time later, my parents were in town visiting me and continuing to London after the weekend, and they thought they might go to the Portrait Gallery -- and I told them about this picture and how they had to be sure to see it. And they asked at the desk when they got there -- "Our daughter tells us there's a painting of Judi Dench that we have to see" -- and the staffer said Oh, so sorry, I don't think it's hanging at the moment; but another staffer said No, they just rotated it back in, here, I'll show you where it is. So he did, and my parents agreed it was a remarkable picture.
It's here. The National Museum of American Art and Portraiture, or whatever it's called, in the Old Patent Office at 8th and F NW, has an exhibit called "Great Britons", running through September 3. There's a lot of good stuff in that museum -- also an exhibit of photography by a guy whose name I forget, which I liked a lot -- and when R said there was this exhibit in the portrait gallery, I thought Ooh, wouldn't it be groovy if that Judi Dench picture were here. And then I turned a corner and there it was, and I told R and K the story above, and they agreed it's a fantastic picture.
You are encouraged (because "required" is probably a bit much) to go see it. Free admission, so why not? As an added incentive, there's a very nice (but much smaller) picture of Sir Ian McKellen, right at Dame Judi's feet.
sebastienne and I spent a day in London that included a wander through the National Portrait Gallery. I really like portraits when they're made interesting, which one way to do that is to have generations' (or in this case centuries') worth of portraits all in the same place, so you can see how the styles -- of hair, clothing, posing, painting -- in conventional portraits change. Another way is to have unconventional portraits, of course. The NPG has both, so I was pretty happy. I remember noting that the modern equivalent of the old portraits, where everyone posed the subject the same way until someone did it differently, and then before long everyone was doing it the new way, is the magazine cover. For a while, all the cover models have their hands on their hips. Then someone does that hip-shot one-knee-cocked thing, and pretty soon everyone's doing it. The girls and the clothes change, but not the poses.Anyway. At the end of my trek through the gallery, in a big white marble room on the ground floor, was a picture of Dame Judi Dench that just plain stopped me in my tracks. It's not easy to describe what's so remarkable about it, so I'll just try to describe the picture itself -- Dame Judi is standing, with her arms at her sides and her weight on her left foot, in brown leather trousers and clunky boots and a knee-length cream-colored coat, with that cap of white hair. That's it. There's no background, no floor, no walls, it's just cream-and-brown-and-white on white and about ten feet tall, and she looks fantastic, and I remember just standing and looking at it for whole minutes and thinking that this must be the best picture of Judi Dench I have ever seen.
Some time later, my parents were in town visiting me and continuing to London after the weekend, and they thought they might go to the Portrait Gallery -- and I told them about this picture and how they had to be sure to see it. And they asked at the desk when they got there -- "Our daughter tells us there's a painting of Judi Dench that we have to see" -- and the staffer said Oh, so sorry, I don't think it's hanging at the moment; but another staffer said No, they just rotated it back in, here, I'll show you where it is. So he did, and my parents agreed it was a remarkable picture.
It's here. The National Museum of American Art and Portraiture, or whatever it's called, in the Old Patent Office at 8th and F NW, has an exhibit called "Great Britons", running through September 3. There's a lot of good stuff in that museum -- also an exhibit of photography by a guy whose name I forget, which I liked a lot -- and when R said there was this exhibit in the portrait gallery, I thought Ooh, wouldn't it be groovy if that Judi Dench picture were here. And then I turned a corner and there it was, and I told R and K the story above, and they agreed it's a fantastic picture.
You are encouraged (because "required" is probably a bit much) to go see it. Free admission, so why not? As an added incentive, there's a very nice (but much smaller) picture of Sir Ian McKellen, right at Dame Judi's feet.
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Out of curiosity, which corner was it that you turned (floor and wing will suffice ;-) Though were I to guess I'd say that it's probably in the special exhibitions section in the Northwest quadrant behind the presidential portraits...
I'll also make a point to bring my digital camera and see if I can't get a pic that does it justice... do they allow cameras at the gallery, I don't recall...
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adventure