Postcard from Washington, DC

 

I’ve been fortunate to visit many of the great art galleries of the western world…the National Gallery and the Tate in London; the Louvre and the Orsay in Paris; the Uffizi and the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence; the Guggenheim in Venice; the Chicago Institute of Art; just to mention a few. Some of them I’ve visited more than once.

But, I visited the National Gallery in Washington DC only once, I am sad to say. It’s an absolute treasure house of art from around the world. When one visits a museum such as this, one becomes overwhelmed with the magnificent works in front of your eyes. You want to go back again and again to see them all. If it were possible, I would go every day and take in just one painting per day.

On this day in DC, I came across this well-loved painting by James McNeill Whistler…originally titled “The White Girl,” but later changed to “Symphony in White.” It is arguably his second most famous painting…the other being the painting we all know as Whistler’s Mother (I’ve seen that one also as it hangs in the Orsay Museum in Paris).

The White Girl was painted when Whistler lived in Paris. The model was his mistress, Joanna Hiffernan. He submitted the painting to the Royal Academy in Paris for inclusion in the famous annual Salon exhibition. It was rejected by them along with paintings by Manet, Monet, and several other famous Impressionist painters of the time. You see, the Royal Academy was quite conservative and did not consider most of these new works as being good art (read Ross King’s excellent book, “The Judgment of Paris,”to learn more about the end of neo-classism and the rise of the Impressionists and how the establishment fought this new kind of art).

Now about the photo: I call this one “Transitions,” as your eye must go through three rooms to arrive at the painting…each room transitions to the next. But, if you look closely, you will see I changed the second room to pure black and white. So you transition from color, to black and white, then back to color where the painting hangs. The beautiful doorways make the transitions even better. This is one of my most favorite works. Believe it or not, it was shot on slide film, then later scanned into my computer for post processing.

Some don’t, but many museums allow you to use your cameras while viewing the artworks. But be warned, you will not be allowed to use a tripod or flash in any of the museums. If you get caught doing it, you will be kicked out. So my advice is to bring a camera that has built-in anti-shake so you can capture those beautiful paintings. Be sure and take several exposures as even anti-shake cameras are not perfect, especially in low-light conditions.

What is somewhat amazing is that the camera that took this image did not have anti-shake (wasn’t invented then), nor did I use a tripod…the shot was hand-held. Sometimes you just get lucky.