National Art Gallery DC

National Art Gallery Rotunda

Mass. 54th Regiment

9/25/10

Last week Summer ended and Autumn began.  This is our last night here in Greenbelt National Park.  The tips of the trees are starting to turn yellow and the driveways and vehicles now collect the dryer leaves that have already fallen.  The high temperatures have baked the moisture from the fallen and they crunch underfoot.

Tomorrow we will head for the Shenandoah Valley and the Blue Ridge Parkway seeking more wooded park grounds to park the  Airstream and watch the botanic   transformation slowly intensify with each day.   It should be colder at the higher elevations and perhaps the colors have gotten a head start.  We need to be sure the propane tanks are topped up for more “dry” camping as they run the ref., hot water stove and we will probably need the furnace soon for heat.  We are not sure how long we will be in the hills but we both look forward to more peace and quiet.  Somehow the crickets and far, far off train whistles here in Greenbelt qualify as quiet.  More of the same would be just fine.  

Today we again took the Metro Rail into DC and found it to be such a relief over driving  ourselves.  The right shoes, socks and dress for heat are important. Carry as little as possible and drink a lot of water. A frosty glass of Stella Artois helps as well!  Today we concentrated on the National Museum of Art.   It made my week.

The Chester Dale collection of Impressionism to Modernism is incredibly encompassing and balanced.  Much of the finest works of Manet to Monet, from Matisse, Renoir, Degas,  Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso to Braque, Modigliani to Van Gough even Dali were represented.  How can a single man amass such incredible art?  

My faith in the artist and art has been again at once restored, reinvigorated and overwhelmed.   In these technologically driven times when more is more and fast is never fast enough we can take heart and flight  in the artist and art that bring such intelligence, beauty, soul and passion into light from pigments on the tip of a brush in measured and deliberate time.

Of course the Museums other permanent exhibits were mesmerizing as well, paintings of other masters and periods, sculpture with a huge amount of work from Rodin, metal work and even Gauden’s life size masterpiece Memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts Fifty Fourth Regiment, the first all African American regiment.  There are many things here in our Capitol that succeed in reminding us of our struggles and sacrifices ,  losses as well as victories.   DC is our repository, our shelves for our stuff.  Consider how each and everyone of us have  our places, that give us security,  for our stuff.  DC is the collective shelf on display for all of us.  My apologies to all you Poli Sci majors and attorneys out there but the politicians of DC never even entered or seemed to be a part my perception of the consciousness of our stuff save for a peripheral creeping in around the edges.  Certainly much of this town pays homage to our statesmen and military leaders, many astride equine splendor in stone.  Certainly the founders and framersof our national birth were a unique and fascinating bunch of individuals.  But there is an underlying current that is wide and deep that represents all of us on a more personal level.  Despite the hardness of the city, despite the unfettered political ambitions this still is a place for our

stuff.

Perhaps we’ll return one day, we only saw less than half of the Smithsonian’s art although  JoAnn did get to see Julia Child’s kitchen!  And we found our own little restaurant that we returned to three times off of an open square where we were comfortable and refreshed.  And we learned to ride the subway!

See you in the hills of Appalachia.

Tony & JoAnn 

Rotunda Dome