More Museums and Galleries of London

Yesterday was a rather mundane day. In Shakespeare, we discussed the performance of Doctor Faustus, although no one really had anything good to say, and then we had meetings with our instructor about our final papers. I had a frozen dinner and then met up with some friends at a local pub, the Duke of York.

Today's British Art & Architecture class took us to the Tate Britain, where we saw some paintings by Turner and Hogarth, along with some modern art pieces. It's very interesting because there are very little classical paintings actually on display, and the museum curator has taken a lot of criticism for how the galleries are set-up. I would have liked to see more paintings because I was under the impression that modern art was mainly shown in the Tate Modern and that older British painters were shown in the Tate Britain.


We got on the bus to travel to Trafalgar Square but had to get off at Parliament Square and walk the rest of the way. There was a "suspicious package" found and the streets were blocked off. They take threats very seriously and find it better to be cautious in situations like this because of past occurrences with bombings. For instance, there are very few rubbish bins to be found on public streets because they make for easy targets.


After making a detour through Green Park and across The Mall, we made it to the National Gallery to take a closer look at a few more paintings by JMW Turner we had discussed in class, like "The Fighting Temeraire" (1838).


I had lunch with a few of my classmates after our Gallery visit. We had gone to Lincoln's Inn Fields and ate a picnic in the park. There were so many business people sitting in the grass while eating their lunches, suits and all. It was really quite astonishing to see them in such a relaxed atmosphere, a stark contrast from how a lot of members of the corporate world act here in the United States.

After lunch, we went to Sir John Soane's House. He was an architect who combined two townhouses in a very unique way in order to create his home. He left it as a museum and stipulated in his will how it was to be kept. He really played with how light was let into a space, and he had a terrific collection of historical artifacts and paintings. He had the entire collection of William Hogarth's original paintings for the "Rake's Progress" along with various other paintings, and architectural drawings he did himself. The walkways are so narrow that you are not allowed to carry jackets or large bags through the museum. It really was a fantastically wacky place!