Mad About the Madonnas in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC

I can spend more than a few hours in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC searching out and staring at all the Madonna paintings and statues. Not only are they hundreds of years old and created by  very famous Renaissance artists, but you just know that millions of people have also gazed on them and thought about the contents. Their colors and textures are extraordinary and you can't help wondering what woman and child or person sat and posed for the artist so he or she could create these icons. Of course, not everyone knows the stories of Advent and the birth of Jesus but of the several billion Christians in the world, I would hope that a few of us can gaze on these visual treats and have it enhance our faith. For others, at the least they can appreciate the art's antiquity and value or perhaps catch a glimmer of what they mean. I am very glad that one is allowed to take photos inside the Gallery as I now have my own images of these priceless works to use in a blog like this or to insert inside an email or print out for myself or whatever.  With electronic text and images, there are miracles we can experience every day!

Museum Days

With my mother-in-law visiting, it was a perfect excuse to tank up on the exhibits at the National Gallery of Art, the American Portrait Gallery and Museum of American Art. So we saw a somewhat interesting set of portraits of Elvis Presley, the Norman Rockwell exhibit from the collection by Stephen Spielberg and a good walk-through of favorites from the National Gallery. I always have to check out my favorite paintings and the wonderful experience of walking through the computer-generated light tunnel to the cafeteria for lunch in the national gallery. There's all the Madonna and Christ images that I must see as well as the huge American Frank Church landscapes and the Turner-Mallord seascapes. So this time, I took my camera with me and took photos of many of these.  On special loan from another museum was the Auguste Saint-Gaudens sculpture called Memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts 54th African American regiment that fought in the civil war. This is truly a spectacular relief type sculpture in a bright red shiny bronze material and well worth the visit alone. To our surprise the museums were not that crowded and when we ate at the very nice, and expensive, cafe-style restaurants at the galleries the food was fresh and there were not long lines. For a weekend in the middle of July I really did expect more people in the galleries. The same was true for parking -- plenty of available spots for the National Gallery. Manifold blessings in the city!