The National Gallery

The National Gallery was huge! the work was beautiful but it seemed repetitive. There is only so many Jesus paintings I can take. The architecture and structure of the building itself was impressive. I also enjoyed the golden halos that were present in many of the paintings. Holbein's The Ambassadors is an interesting painting. The colors are great, especially the green of the backdrop/tapestry. Everything is rendered really well and the skull illusion is cool but very random. It only works from the right side. When looking straight on it's just a distraction to the rest of the painting. In Lorenzo Costa's A Concert 1485-95 I was drawn to the way he deals with the faces of the individuals, the sort of flatness of the overall painting but also the immense detail. Bronzino's An Allegory with Venus and Cupid struck me as really creepy when you look at the imagery closely. But the contrast between the ivory skin and the blue cloth as well as the sense of light is utterly beautiful. Pasellino's Story of David and Goliath caught my attention because it was much darker than any other version in terms of rendering, style, and color. I was happy to see Van Eyck's Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife as we spent a lot of time discussing this piece in an art history class. Overall, the National Gallery was impressive but repetitive in the way that it was all painting and historical classical/Renaissance.