Week 2, part two

 

So after work one day I decided to go straight into town to see some art galleries that were supposed to be especially interesting, or at least, they seemed that way to me. Something I'm really liking about working in D.C is that as soon as work ends I can get to the Metro and be on the other side of town in a matter of minutes.

 

After spending most of the day inside there is nothing better than coming across a garden like this;

 

 

 

This was a courtyard in the middle of the Freer Gallery, and it impressed me as much as the art itself.

That being said, the art was well worth seeing, especially as entry is free (another amazing thing about D.C!) because the Freer Gallery (like the Sackler and National Gallery of African art) is part of the Smithsonian institution.

 

It's fantastic to be able to go from staring at paperwork in an office, to staring at an 8th century tomb-guardian statue (Chinese, Tang dynasty) in less than an hour. I also discovered that several Buddha statues were found to have originally had haloes, which were later removed. Interesting.

 

There was also contemporary Oriental art, like Xu Bing's Phoenix exhibit, linking Chinese folklore with modern socio-political issues (according to the description...) but I'm always more inclined to appreciate ancient manuscripts over contemporary art of any kind. I wonder if people throughout history have always preferred historic art to that of the present? Or if the majority of people have always liked older styles, and only a small minority looked beyond this to initiate some kind of artistic change.

 

I like looking at art that depicts something I already know the context of. The African art gallery had a great painting of the Battle of Adwa (in which the native Ethiopians defended themselves against the Italians, 1896) painted by an African artist. The great thing about that painting was the sense of nationalism - ironically a European idea exported via the colonies - that whilst the Italian soldiers all had the same faces and expressions, the Africans were portrayed as individuals. However, after writing this I think that perhaps as a European it might just be my own world-view (Weber's weltanschauung) that made me see the painting like that.

 

Smithsonian Castle Building (the main information centre for the museums & galleries)

Front garden

African National Gallery skylight
 

 Art is kind of like a visual display of history (among other things). One of my favourite things that I learnt from these galleries was the influence of the Graeco-Roman world on ancient Oriental art. Buddhist art was particularly influenced by Western style, depictions of the Buddha develop symmetrical features (a Western ideal, apparently), the robes of monks start to look more naturalistic and flowing, and even the portrayal of hair becomes more textured!

National sculpture garden (archives in background), note the shiny silver tree!

There was a room in one of the galleries called the Peacock Room. It was a display of a collection of Oriental objects, deliberately set up as it had been in Victorian London. The collection included a painting of a Western, English-looking woman in Oriental clothing, a kimono perhaps. The juxtaposition of East vs. West in that one painting, and the whole collection, mirrored the fact that the entire ensemble of objects had been translocated from London to Washington D.C. It reminded me of myself, and of this blog, and of my blog compared to my sister's.

I like this clock tower, looks European. I wonder if that's why I like it. Incongruous in central D.C.

 After walking around the galleries for a bit I went along the National Mall. What suprised me was the number of ordinary people doing ordinary things there. People walking dogs, families playing catch (with American-style baseball gloves) and whole teams training for various sports. It's weird to think of life going on as normal with the historic backdrop of the Capitol.

Chinatown entrance

 

Another part of the courtyard in the Freer gallery.

Vocabulary learnt;

"aluminum" - tinfoil. Learnt this after someone in the house came knocking to our kitchen, and unfortunately I answered the door, leading to 5 minutes of gesturing, confusion and eventual realisation. Didn't help that the person had a really deep, Southern accent (they're from Arkansas, I asked them).