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Mountains Of Travel Photos

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London Photo Gallery - National Gallery Next 20

In 2004 and 2006 we traveled to London, England

London National Gallery Next 20 01 Bartoleme Bermejo - Saint Michael Triumphant over the Devil with the Donor Antonio Juan Bartolemé Bermejo - St. Michael Triumphant over the Devil with the Donor Antonio Juan, 1468, 180 x 82 cm. This picture shows part of a story from the Bible, which describes how war broke out in heaven. St. Michael, captain of God’s army of angels, fought the rebel angels led by the Devil. St. Michael is painted as a soldier with a crown on his head, carrying a sword and shield, and wearing a shiny breastplate reflecting the imaginary towers of the City of Heaven. St. Michael holds his sword ready to cut off the Devil’s head and points his crystal shield down towards him. The Devil is shying away in terror at the reflection of his own horrible reflection of his own horrible face. Flat on the ground like a snake, the Devil’s body is part snake, part bird and part dragon. He has a second mouth coming out of his stomach with two sets of hard red jewel-like eyes and a snake slithering out below Michael’s feet. His torso is metallic, as if made of armour. His arms, too, combine reptile scales with metal armour, and he has toothed mouths for elbows, so he is apparently eating his own body, consuming himself.

London National Gallery Next 20 01 Bartoleme Bermejo - Saint Michael Triumphant over the Devil with the Donor Antonio Juan

London National Gallery Next 20 02 Antonello da Messina - Saint Jerome in his Study Antonello da Messina - St. Jerome in his Study, 1475, 46 x 36 cm. St. Jerome (347-420) was a monk and a scholar who compiled the standard Latin translation of the Bible. We see him as a dignified scholar dressed in a cardinal’s red robes, sitting in a snug wooden study erected in a Gothic building. A tame lion is shown in the shadows to the right, representing the legend of Jerome extracting a thorn from a lion’s foot. The painting shows the effects of light as it streams in from the viewer’s space through the opening in the foreground, and through the windows behind him, casting sharp or graduated shadows, reflecting from different surfaces, and illuminating the landscape beyond the lower windows and the distant sky above. Birds wheel in the sky and settle on the window ledges, figures row a boat on the river, and there is a walled city with gentle mountains rising beyond.

London National Gallery Next 20 02 Antonello da Messina - Saint Jerome in his Study

London National Gallery Next 20 03 Giovanni Bellini - The Agony in the Garden Giovanni Bellini - The Agony in the Garden, about 1465, 81 x 127 cm. Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane while Peter, James and John sleep. An angel reveals a cup symbolizing his impending sacrifice. In the background, Judas approaches with the Roman soldiers who will arrest Jesus. Perhaps for the first time in Italian painting, the artist has represented a real, observed sunrise, which tints the undersides of clouds rose-orange, reflects from the walls of distant towns, glitters on armour. By specifying the time of day, the picture reminds us of Christ’s long night of agony, with its final acceptance of the Passion symbolized by the chalice held out by the angel like a priest officiating at Mass.

London National Gallery Next 20 03 Giovanni Bellini - The Agony in the Garden

London National Gallery Next 20 04 Hans Holdein the Younger - The Ambassadors Hans Holbein the Younger - The Ambassadors, 1533, 207 x 210 cm. This picture features two wealthy, educated and powerful young men - Jean de Dinteville, the French ambassador to England in 1533; and Georges de Selve, Bishop of Lavaur. The picture is in a tradition showing learned men with books and instruments. The objects on the upper shelf include a celestial globe, a portable sundial and various other instruments used for understanding the heavens and measuring time. Among the objects on the lower shelf is a lute, a case of flutes, a hymn book, a book of arithmetic and a terrestrial globe. In the foreground is the distorted image of a skull, a symbol of mortality. When seen from a point to the right of the picture the distortion is corrected.

London National Gallery Next 20 04 Hans Holdein the Younger - The Ambassadors

London National Gallery Next 20 05 Raphael - Pope Julius II Raphael - Portrait of Pope Julius II, 1512, 108 x 81 cm. This is a portrait of Pope Julius II, shortly before his death in 1513, wearing a red and white cape. The pope had grown a beard to show that he was upset about the loss of the city of Bologna. Julius II was a liberal patron of arts, employing Bramante for the design of St. Peter's cathedral, and bringing Raphael to Rome to decorate his private apartments and commissioning Michelangelo for the frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and for his own tomb. Julius is seated in an armchair adorned with his own personal emblem, the acorn. The pope’s head is in the centre of the painting, with a line emphasized down to the handkerchief in his hand.

London National Gallery Next 20 05 Raphael - Pope Julius II

London National Gallery Next 20 06 Leonardo da Vinci - The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist Leonardo da Vinci - The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist, 1499–1500, 105 × 42 cm. Leonardo’s cartoon shows the Virgin Mary seated on the knee of her mother, St. Anne, while holding the Christ Child, who is blessing St. John the Baptist. The detail in the darkest shadows and brightest highlights gives the faces a mysterious radiance. The completed oil version in the Louvre in Paris.

London National Gallery Next 20 06 Leonardo da Vinci - The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist

London National Gallery Next 20 07 Lorenzo Lotto - Portrait of a Lady with a Drawing of Lucretia Lorenzo Lotto - Portrait of a Lady with a Drawing of Lucretia 1530-33, 96 x 110 cm. Dressed in an elaborate and softly painted costume of gleaming green and orange, the lady directs attention to a drawing held in her left hand. This shows her Roman namesake, Lucretia, about to stab herself after she had been raped. The event is supposed to have precipitated the collapse of the Etruscan royal line (510 BC) and thus led to the founding of the Roman Republic. The portrait, while displaying the beauty of the sitter, also proclaims her virtue, as underlined by the Latin inscription on the paper on the table:

London National Gallery Next 20 07 Lorenzo Lotto - Portrait of a Lady with a Drawing of Lucretia

London National Gallery Next 20 08 Titian - Portrait of a Man with a Quilted Sleeve Titian – Portrait of a Man with a Quilted Sleeve, 1512 81 x 66 cm. It has been plausibly suggested that the assertive unknown man in this portrait, is Titian himself when young. Subverting the Venetian convention by which a parapet defines the picture plane, locating the sitter behind it, Titian’s elbow in the blue sleeve projects beyond the stone ledge, off the canvas into our space. A monogram, T V, is ‘carved’ into the parapet.

London National Gallery Next 20 08 Titian - Portrait of a Man with a Quilted Sleeve

London National Gallery Next 20 09 Rembrandt - Self Portrait at the Age of 63 Rembrandt - Self Portrait at the Age of 63, 1669, 86 x 71 cm. This work was painted in the final year of Rembrandt's life and is one of his last pictures. He died on October 4, 1669 and was buried in the Westerkerk in Amsterdam. Rembrandt painted more self portraits than any other artist of the 17th century. In this picture, the artist wears a deep red coat and a beret, his hands clasped before him.

London National Gallery Next 20 09 Rembrandt - Self Portrait at the Age of 63

London National Gallery Next 20 10 Meindert Hobbema - The Avenue at Middelharnis Meindert Hobbema - The Avenue at Middelharnis (1689, 104 x 141 cm). The tall, thin poplar trees on either side dominate the painting, getting smaller and smaller as they get further away, giving a feeling of depth and distance. Beneath the large expanse of sky, a hunter is out with his dog, a couple talks in a lane, and a man prunes his crop of hops. The patches of shadow tell us that the sun is high to the left.

London National Gallery Next 20 10 Meindert Hobbema - The Avenue at Middelharnis

London National Gallery Next 20 11 Jan Vermeer - A Young Woman seated at a Virginal Jan Vermeer - A Young Woman seated at a Virginal, 1670-2, 51.5 x 45.5 cm. The young woman seems to look at us as we enter the room, but keeps on playing the virginal (a keyboard instrument similar to a harpsichord). Propped against the virginal in the left foreground is a viola da gamba with the bow placed in between the strings. The virginal has a landscape painted on the inside of the lid, and the painting in the background is The Procuress by Dirck van Baburen. A tapestry frames the scene at the upper left, and the skirting in the lower right is decorated with Delft tiles.

London National Gallery Next 20 11 Jan Vermeer - A Young Woman seated at a Virginal

London National Gallery Next 20 12 Luca Giordano - Perseus turning Phineas to Stone Luca Giordano - Perseus turning Phineas to Stone (early 1680s, 285 x 366 cm). Perseus is the mythical Greek hero who cut off the head of Medusa, whose glance immediately turned people to stone, and kept it in a bag around his waist. Perseus and Andromeda got married and had a huge party to celebrate. The jealous Phineas stormed into the party with his men, planning to kill Perseus. Having warned Andromeda to turn away, Perseus quickly pulled out the ghastly head of Medusa, which immediately froze Phineas and his followers to the spot and their flesh was transformed into cool, hard, grey stone.

London National Gallery Next 20 12 Luca Giordano - Perseus turning Phineas to Stone

London National Gallery Next 20 13 Jan Jansz Treck - Vanitas Still Life Jan Jansz Treck - Vanitas Still Life, 1648, 91 x 78 cm. In this apparently quiet still life, each object contains a secret message about death and how quickly life goes by. The skull is an obvious symbol of death. The helmet is a reminder that armour cannot protect even the greatest warrior from death. The hour-glass measures how time passes. The pipe and the plug of tobacco suggest that life is like smoke, here for a while and then gone forever. The shell and straw, used for blowing soap bubbles, suggest that life is fragile like a bubble. The book of music and the instruments suggest that life is like a melody, heard for a while and then silent.

London National Gallery Next 20 13 Jan Jansz Treck - Vanitas Still Life

London National Gallery Next 20 14 Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres - Madame Moitessier Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres - Madame Moitessier, 1856, 120 x 91 cm. Ingres deeply admired the art of ancient Greece and Rome and spent his life trying to achieve the simple lines and finely modeled shapes found in classical art. Madame Moitessier’s marble-smooth skin and calm gaze reminds us of a classical statue. The richly decorated room, her heavy gold jewelry, and extravagant, fashionable dress show that she was very wealthy. The firm contour of her shoulders, arms and face defines flesh perfectly rounded, and smooth and luminous as polished alabaster.

London National Gallery Next 20 14 Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres - Madame Moitessier

London National Gallery Next 20 15 JMW Turner - Ulysses deriding Polyphemus JMW Turner - Ulysses deriding Polyphemus, 1829, 133 x 203 cm. Ulysses and his men were sailing back from the Trojan War and stopped off at an island to look for food. Suddenly they came face to face with Polyphemus, a ferocious one-eyed giant Cyclops. The giant attacked and ate four of Ulysses’ men. That night Ulysses heated a sharpened stake in a fire and plunged it into the giant’s huge eye. They escaped back to their ship and sailed away. Turner has disguised Polyphemus as a mountain top and made the spirits of the sea look like waves in front of Ulysses’ ship. The horses of the sun god, Apollo, are painted just above the rising sun.

London National Gallery Next 20 15 JMW Turner - Ulysses deriding Polyphemus

London National Gallery Next 20 16 Thomas Gainsborough - Mr and Mrs Andrews Thomas Gainsborough – Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, 1748-9, 70 x 119 cm. The church whose tower is seen in the centre background is St. Peter’s, Sudbury, where Robert Andrews and Frances Mary Carter were married in 1748. Mr. Andrews nonchalantly has his gun under his arm. Mrs. Andrews, ramrod straight and neatly composed, has a space in her lap that may have been meant to hold a book or a bird her husband had shot. Gainsborough beautifully paints the gold and green of fields and woodland, the supple curves of fertile land meeting the stately clouds. The acid blue hooped skirt almost, but not quite, rhymes with the curved bench back, her silk shoes point like the bench seat, while Mr. Andrews’s substantial shoes point like the tree roots.

London National Gallery Next 20 16 Thomas Gainsborough - Mr and Mrs Andrews

London National Gallery Next 20 17 JMW Turner - Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway JMW Turner - Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway, 1844, 91 x 122 cm. Turner admired modern technology and here paints the most modern locomotive of its kind crossing Maidenhead Bridge. Turner used swirls and slashes of paint to give the feeling of rain driving across the path of the train, and for the engine’s smoke and steam. In front of the train, a hare is dashing across the tracks. To the right of the bridge, a man and his horse are plowing the land. On the left, you can see two figures fishing quietly from a boat, while a group of people stand on the water’s edge, and seem to be waving as the train hurtles past.

London National Gallery Next 20 17 JMW Turner - Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway

London National Gallery Next 20 18 Claude Monet - The Water-Lily Pond Claude Monet - The Water-Lily Pond 1899, 88 x 92 cm. Monet moved to Giverny in 1883. In 1893 he acquired a small pond and created a water garden with an arched bridge in the Japanese style, copied from a print that hung in his dining room. In 1899, when the vegetation of the water garden was at its most luxuriant, he began a series of views across the pond to the arching bridge. Here the garden is shown in slanting summer afternoon light, in cool harmonies of green and mauve balanced by bright yellow reflections and vivid red and white water lilies.

London National Gallery Next 20 18 Claude Monet - The Water-Lily Pond

London National Gallery Next 20 19 Camille Pissarro -The Boulevard Monmartre at Night Camille Pissarro - The Boulevard Montmarte At Night, 1897, 53 x 65 cm. In February 1897 Pissarro produced a series of paintings of the Boulevard Montmartre at different times of the day. This painting is the only night scene from this series, and is a masterful rendition of the play of lights on dark and wet streets.

London National Gallery Next 20 19 Camille Pissarro -The Boulevard Monmartre at Night

London National Gallery Next 20 20 Vincent Van Gogh - A Wheatfield, with Cypresses Vincent van Gogh - A Wheatfield with Cypresses, September 1899, 72 x 91 cm. One of three almost identical versions, this was painted when Van Gogh was in the St-Rémy mental asylum, near Arles, where he was a patient from May 1889 until May 1890. Van Gogh paints a yellow cornfield with the flame-like form of the cypress, `a splash of black in a sunny landscape', and whirling brushstrokes in the sky.

London National Gallery Next 20 20 Vincent Van Gogh - A Wheatfield, with Cypresses