London part 2: What a sweet mistress perspective is!

So, I've run out of Sussex-arranged weekend trips but it just feels to wrong to stay on campus or even in Brighton on a Saturday now. That means the burden of arranging things to do now falls on me. I don't like it. However, after some slightly complicated online ticket buying I was committed to going to London. And what did I plan to do with 6 or slightly more hours in London? The Nationally Gallery of course and yes, it did really take that much time (with lunch). The National Gallery = really awesome. Not only was it cool to see it after going to a lecture on it in my Art of the Modern Era course (it was started in 1824) but it is a really nice collection with some major highlights. These include:
-Jan van Eyck's The Arnolfini Marriage (1434)

-The Rokeby Venus by Diego Velazuqez (1647-51)

-Van Gogh's Sunflowers

- Monet's Waterlilies, but this is The Water Lily Pond, which I like better

-Seueat's Bathers at Asnieres

-many Rembrandts , this is Self Portrait, 1669


-The Leonardo Cartoon

-Venus and Mars by Botticelli


-and many others including one of my favorites, The Battle of San Romano (one of a set of three) by Paolo Uccello (1397-1475) and which once were in the Palazzo Medici.
Which brings me to a mildly amusing story about Uccello, who was know for his strong use of linear perspective and is portrayed as eccentric. According to Vassari (16th century Italian working for the Medici who is know for his biographies of Italian artists), one night Uccello's wife was like "hey Uccello, it's late come to bed" and Uccello replied, "What a sweet mistress is this perspective!" or something like that. Anyway, this is what I think of when I think of Uccello.

The National Gallery did take up most of the day but I also peeked into the National Portrait Gallery and the nearby church St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Once again I wasn't really sure what was interesting about St-Martin-in-the-Fields but people were going in and it was just across the street. The church was designed by James Gibbs in 1721 and completed in 1726. Although criticized at the time, the design of the church later The design was criticized at the time the design later was copied widely particularly in the U.S. Also there was a little string group in there playing Vivaldi, so that was nice.


Last event of the day was the free hugs guy in Trafalgar square.