Tour: Wonders of the National Gallery & Social

The second of three days of Meetup, on Saturday, I was back with Laurence Summers and the 45+ Not Grumpies - very glad to see that the issue with Meetup that required payment on signing up to an event has been fixed.. The tour was Wonders of the National Gallery.

Ah, but it was hard to drag myself up, after the night before.. I did though, and set off in brilliant sunshine. I was supposed to take two buses, changing on Strand to get one to take me the length of the street. I was ultimately joined by a whole group of people.. I was quite early, but when I'd been there for nearly half an hour, I said sod it and walked. Any bus would have done, but there wasn't a single bus headed in that direction! No mention of problems on TFL either. Well, I still arrived early.. and actually, most of the group were a little late, what with Tube problems as well. He always waits for a while for latecomers though, and as we waited, we listened to the strains of a classical music concert, coming from nearby Trafalgar Square.

We headed into the gallery in due course, had a (nominal) bag check, and climbed many stairs to get to the bit we were looking at. Some paintings I'd seen before, but had forgotten the details of:

The Arnolfini portrait is an interesting one of a wealthy married couple. One of those that merits closer scrutiny.. for example, the mirror in the background, if you look closely, depicts figures - it's thought one is the artist, Jan Van Eyck. They're not wearing much jewellery, but subtle elements of the painting indicate wealth - such as the oranges, which would have been expensive, and one of which - as our guide pointed out - has been left on the window, where it'll spoil. Also, the fact of a single lighted candle might indicate wealth - why bother to go to the expense of lighting a candle during daylight hours - as do the fur-lined clothes they're wearing. Even the colour of her dress would have been an expensive, and difficult, colour to dye clothes to. The shoes to the side are actually a kind of overshoe, worn to keep the wearer's shoes off the muddy streets.

The gallery includes a number of unfinished paintings - interesting, because they show something of the process. This one is by Michaelangelo.

The Wilton Diptych depicts Richard II (kneeling, on the left) - beside him, to the right, John the Baptist, and standing beside him, in white, Edward the Confessor - you can tell by the ring he's holding!

Samson and Delilah, by Rubens. Note how the barber's hands are crossed - a sign of betrayal. Mind you, as Laurence remarked, Samson doesn't seem to have much hair! Nor is there evidence of hair having been cut off already. Now, for someone whose strength depended on his hair, you'd have thought he'd have a bit more.. On an aesthetic note, what a beautiful depiction of Delilah's gown..

Rafael's portrait of Pope Julius II. Quite striking.. Rafael died young, and Laurence remarked that, had he lived, he might have outshone Michaelangelo as a painter.

As usual, we had a stop at The Ambassadors.. now, I've seen it a lot, and a lot of the detail was familiar to me; instead, I found myself focusing on the detail of the upside-down globe, with its contemporary depiction of the world, as understood at the time! V interesting - if difficult to read. I think I see a reference to the Barbary coast..

Noticed a picture of Elizabeth Stuart, Electress Palatine, painted shortly after the death of her beloved husband. She was never quite right after that..

The Supper at Emmaus, by Caravaggio - after Jesus' death and resurrection, two of his disciples are walking near Emmaus when joined by a stranger, whom they invite to join them for dinner. It is only, proverbially, at "the breaking of bread", that they recognise him as Jesus.. Lots of hands in this, Jesus' hand raised presumably in blessing, and the outsplayed hand of the disciple on the right, presumably in shock - no wonder the pupils with bags from the Royal Drawing School, sat on the floor in front of this painting, seemed to be tasked with drawing hands!

Marriage a la Mode is a series of six paintings by Hogarth. The first, The Marriage Settlement, shows the contract being signed for the marriage of the young couple on the left. However, they show no interest in each other - she's much more beguiled by Silvertongue the lawyer! The people actually interested in the contract are the couple's fathers - the Earl of Squanderfield, who has squandered his money, sits with one foot bandaged, and on a stool - probably suffering from gout, due to excess. He wants the money that this marriage will bring - the bride's father, in red, is wealthy, but seeks the prestige of having a daughter with a title.

The second painting, The Tete a Tete, shows the young married couple, apparently both recovering from the night's proceedings - probably not with each other. Just visible, past the pillars in the centre, is a naked foot, presumably in a painting - suggesting risque behaviour.

The third painting, The Inspection, has the husband attending the doctor - black spots on the necks of both him and his (extremely young) female companion indicate syphilis.

The fourth painting, The Toilette, has the husband now having become the Earl, following the death of his father. The Countess is holding court in her bedroom. 

The fifth painting, The Bagnio, has the Earl discovering the Countess' infidelity with Silvertongue in a real place called the Turk's Head Bagnio. Silvertongue fatally wounds the Earl before making his escape through a window.

The sixth, and last, painting, The Lady's Death, has her committing suicide after Silvertongue is hanged for her husband's murder. She has returned to her father's house - as a suicide, her property will be forfeit, so her father is removing her ring before the authorities get a hold of it. Her daughter - apparently syphilitic, with a spot on her neck, and also wearing a caliper to correct a deformed leg - clambers to her as she lies dying.

Well, we eventually exited the gallery, still to the sound of music - and a flyover, in honour of Trooping the Colour! and what a beautiful day they had for it.

Well, we didn't have a pub booked for lunch - but Laurence didn't see us stuck, and with most of us coming for a bite, we headed to a place called Fernando's. Which is a cafe, doesn't do alcohol - but they made space for us down the back. They didn't have the curry I initially wanted, but as she listed off the meat items, I chose the lasagne - which was really nice, not salty, which I have experienced in other places. And I had a lemonade. And I do believe we were all happy with our meals - certainly, the conversation was excellent.

Now, I shouldn't have had anything that evening - but someone in The Hideout was headed to June's First Science Fiction Social, run by The London Sci-Fi / Fantasy Group in The Mad Hatter. So I said I'd accompany her. With one of the group from earlier heading in the direction of Waterloo, we walked together, and with me having time to kill, she suggested going for a drink! So we headed to the Southbank Centre.. where something called Harry Style's Meltdown was underway. Apparently running to Sunday, yesterday it had dancers on stage, leading families in dance moves - the little ones were having great fun, and again, such great weather for it! Now, we didn't join in, but had great fun watching them from inside, through the glass. (I should emphasise that Harry Styles does NOT appear in person, he just curated it.) Toilets proved interesting, when I needed them.. turns out Gents is on one side of the building, Ladies on the other!

I did stay on a bit late there, and was a bit late for the social. The Mad Hatter is also a hotel, where I stayed once upon a time, when I wasn't living in London, but came over for U2 concerts. It didn't take long to find the group.. and I have to say, it didn't take them long to make me welcome either! Only thing was, I hadn't brushed up on my SciFi..! Happily, as the organiser pointed out, there's enough overlap with horror, and I found plenty of people willing to discuss things, and recent films, I was interested in - someone even showed me the film he was working on, and had brought his laptop so he could work on it at the pub. So when my friend, who'd initially persuaded me to go, couldn't make it after all, it wasn't such a big deal. We even had a table quiz.. to which I contributed, as I recall, nothing. But it was actually a lovely evening - here's hoping I get to slot another of them into my schedule.. and in keeping with the name of the pub, the decor is very quirky:

On my way home, I had the worst time getting a bus.. I wanted the #381, and was standing at the King's Reach Building stop.. plenty of buses stopping there, but oh no, not that one! No, fully two of them sailed past me, despite me waving at them furiously - I had to walk on to the next stop to get one! Took ages.. and I was way too tired to blog that night.

More to follow..