Art galleries galore

By Alexandra Graff

LONDON-- 

After being in London for almost a week, I realized I couldn’t leave without addressing art.

Viewing art is one of my favorite pastimes, and I make a point to visit an art gallery or museum in every city I visit. London was no exception.

However, when I think of art cities, for some reason London doesn’t really come to mind. Instead, I think about the overwhelmingly grand galleries at the Louvre or the impressive impressionist collection at the Musée D’Orsay in Paris. I even think of New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art before I consider what London has to offer.

Though relatively well known, I was unfamiliar with the contents of London’s National Gallery. In fact, before opening my London guidebook I never knew the National Gallery even existed, let alone the paintings it contained.

What I saw, however, shocked me. The paintings in the National Gallery are true masterpieces.

One of the Gallery’s prized possessions is Vincent Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers,” the famous yellow still life of a vase with sunflowers spilling out. Although I had studied the painting in various art classes, I never realized its home was in London.

Seeing it in person as opposed to reproductions truly makes a difference. For one thing, the painting is relatively small and easily missed if you walk through the room without so much as a glance. My experience seeing it, however, was improved when a museum tour guide started lecturing to 20 elementary school-aged children about Van Gogh and his famous renditions of sunflowers. I couldn’t even imagine being that young and viewing so many beautiful paintings up close as part of a field trip.

Other collections completely awed me: the Degas room with “Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando” and Turner’s breathtakingly subtle “The Fighting Temeraire,” not to mention the Rembrandts, Seurats and Monets.

But the greatest bonus of the museum is the free admission. That’s right, unlike those famous museums and galleries in Paris and New York, and in numerous other cities, the British Department for Culture, Media and Sport decided in 2001 to scrap entrance fees to national galleries and museums, according to the BBC. Museums like the British Museum the Victoria and Albert Museum and Tate Modern, among others, do not require any entrance fee to the main exhibits. Instead, there is a suggested donation of about £5.

The brilliance behind the idea is simple: anyone, locals and tourists alike, can visit the National Gallery and see artwork up close for free. I could actually feel the difference in the atmosphere. While some people just came in to escape the sudden burst of rain outside, others joined the crowded rooms to enter another time or to spend some time sketching. In any case, the artwork clearly belongs not just to the museum but also to the people. 

After seeing so many famous portraits, landscapes, seascapes, and religious scenes in the National Gallery alone, I am excited to venture further into the art scene with a visit to Tate Modern.