National Gallery of Art (East Building) or these are a few of my favorite things

When I first walked into the East Building of the National Gallery of Art, I thought, "Well at least it is free." It is a big open building, and there did not seem to be much art around. There were two special exhibits, neither holding much interest to me. As I began walking around though I started to notice that the art is hidden away in galleries that are not first noticeable. So things started to look up, and then I stumbled upon a room that might have been tailor made for me. Two of the artists whose work is most interesting to me are Jean Dubuffet and Alberto Giacometti, and there is one room that was the proverbial mother load of Dubuffet and Giacometti. Needless to say I was ecstatic, and I whipped out the camera. Below are some highlights:

The East Building is a really interesting structure. Unfortunately it is hard to get a good picture of it due to its location.

Below are the highlights from the Dubuffet collection:

I must have stood and observed this first one for 20 minutes. There is so much going on and so many interesting details.

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Below are the hightlights of the Giacometti collection (most I had actually seen previously in an exhibit at the MOMA, but it was fun to see them again!)

National Gallery of Art (Sculpture Garden) or for Heather #2

I ended up with such terrible pictures that day. The sun was so harsh.

Do they even make these anymore?

"There's the house"

Alas that this piece was not named Aragog (or Shelob for that matter)

National Gallery of Art (West Building)

Continuing my tour of art museums, I took in the National Gallery of Art one day. The National Gallery is actually three different spaces. I'll start with the West building as it is the most well known, and the least interesting to me. It contains the majority of the art except for the modern art and sculpture. This is the type of museum that overwhelms me pretty quickly. There is so much to see, and I know so little about the art that I am generally only good for a couple of hours. Since I had actually started off in the East building, I was not at all thorough, but just picked the time periods that interested me.

I guess that this is the National Gallery's response to the Louvre's Glass Pyramid

I think that I saw this Toulouse-Lautrec in an exhibition at the Art Institute in Chicago. Unfortunately I have a terrible memory for art!

Here is an example of Monet that I like. It helps that it is the Parliament Building in London, and the colors are not too vomity.

Creating a Risk to National Security...

we were sponsered by Senator Kohl of Wisconsin to take a tour of the Capital Building. Years ago when I went to Washington DC with a summer band program we also took a tour of the Capital. Now that was many years ago, and my memory is not what it used to be. I seem to remember that the tour was more involved than it is these days. (In fact I seem to remember being in the vice president's office. I could be really wrong about that though!) I guess that it is understandable though given the state of the world, but it was somewhat disappointing. Especially since we were sponsered by a Senator, I tought that we might get more than just the basic everyday tour. No such luck. It is still very cool to stand in the rotunda though and look up into the dome.

Washington DC

One of my favorite parts of touring is that it affords me the time to spend exploring a town that I would not normally have. I have been to Washington DC 3 other times, but never have I had a week to spend there. I did my best to take advantage of my free time. Again I will have to split up my posts to make sense of things.

Christmastime Is (Was) Here

This is the first year that I did not have a real (well artificial) Christmas tree since I was in college. Being on the road makes that difficult. I still have all 5 of my trees. They are all sitting in the basement of my parent's house so I had to live vicariously through other's Christmas decorations. Here is a sampling of Christmas decorations from the various cities that I have traveled to this year:

New York, New York (Obviously)

Newport, Kentucky

Williamsport, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

(This was the Norwegian Tourism Board tree. It is decorated with US and Norwegian flags)

Washington DC

Chicago, Illinois

I had intended to have this message posted in time for Christmas. Alas!

Christmas Break From The Blog

I'm currently on my Christmas break from Wizard. I'll be back soon to catch up on the four cities pictured below. Until then here is something to tide you over:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4choyUv-ko