Passing through the foyer of Washington DC’s National Portrait Gallery, we headed into the central courtyard, now covered, and I was transported back to the British Museum. Whether the gallery had drawn inspiration from the London museum’s Great Court, I didn’t know. So when I had a quick look (on Wikipedia, of course) it came as no real surprise to see that Norman Foster had designed both covered courtyards.
The British Museum is probably my favourite museum (I think only Berlin’s German Historical Museum rivals in, certainly in terms of a museum capturing history broadly, rather than a specific theme such as natural history or a specific city). The breadth of the collections are incredible, even if the UK’s ownership of many of them is controversial. Appreciating the spectacular scale of the museum’s collections is also an acknowledgement of our relationship with knowledge in general. It is impossible to think that you could absorb everything on display in the museum in a single visit (let alone the percentage of the 8 million objects which aren’t on display). Instead, you have to be selective and recognise you are just dipping in on any single visit. Sometimes the selection can be intentional, at other times you can meander and see what takes your fancy. Just as sometimes you go on the website looking for a particular topic, at other times you find yourself in the Alice in Wonderland rabbit warren that is clicking through Wikipedia for an afternoon.
Visiting the National Portrait Gallery, I knew it wasn’t going to be for a long visit. I would just dip in. I also knew that living in a city like DC or London, you have those museums and galleries on your doorstep so there is plenty of opportunity to return (albeit living in London I didn’t do that enough). Other than an intention to see the Presidents gallery, I had the licence to wander.
Walking around the galleries, I also recognised the living example of a point I made about knowledge and curiosity on this blog the other day. Having knowledge allows you to access more knowledge. It allows you to understand more. Passing portraits from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, my eyes were drawn to names and faces I knew: Benjamin Franklin, Henry Laurens, George McClellan. These names were in my head from a host of sources – films, books, etc. But in this moment, I could appreciate the portraits that little more. Reading the short biographies accompanying each painting, I could add whatever additional knowledge I already had to appreciate the context of each painting’s subject. Maybe it was just smugness, but it was a lovely feeling!
Then there were the Presidents. The entrance to the gallery was quite off-putting: the leering face of Donald J. Trump staring out from the wall. Organised chronologically, some paintings were definitely more impressive than others. The style of Clinton’s portrait made it much more underwhelming than the subject. Kennedy’s painting, itself quite understated, was flanked by some other paintings and photos to capture that enigmatic executive. Like the other portraits elsewhere in the gallery, each president came with a biography and some commentary on the painting. Perhaps the theme of the gallery lent itself to interesting interpretation boards, but I found the selectiveness of the biographies striking. Johnson was described as a master manipulator. Nixon’s explained that his portrait artist set out to flatter, knowing what a tricky character that the president was.
Visiting art galleries, I am always more interested in the subject of paintings and the context of their creation, less so in the artistic techniques. I’m often left frustrated that any interpretation boards focus more on the latter than the former. In the National Portrait Gallery, the interpretations seemed to be written with me in mind. Art is a window on the world, through which there is much to learn and they are presented perfectly here. I will definitely be going back.
Commonplace 