My Favorites From the Art Museums

On our fifth day in Washington DC,  I wanted to revisit a favorite place of mine on the National Mall:  National Gallery of Art and it's adjacent East Building.  Here are a few of my favorite paintings from the West Building.

It's vast and impressive rotunda is modeled after the ancient Roman Pantheon.

Here, a student is making a study of Claude Monet's Garden at Vethueil.

Edouard Manet's The Railway

Mary Cassatt's The Boating Party

My two favorites beside one another.

Claude Monet's Bridge Over a Water Lily Pond and Auguste Renoir's Girl with Watering Can

Vincent Van Gogh's Self-Portrait

Vincent Van Gogh's Field with Green Wheat

Henri Fantin-Latour (1874) Pansies

Gilbert Stuart's The Skater

Edward Savage's The Washington Family

Winslow Homer's Breezing Up

Cecilla Beaux's Sita and Sarita

We just happened to make a natural right turn once we left the National Gallery's rotunda, which took us into the 18th and 19th century Spanish, French, British and American Galleries. Unfortunately we didn't make our way back to the left side of the building, consisting of their 13th-17th Century paintings and sculptures.  Hopefully, we can get back to see those some day soon.  

We continued walking across the street to see the East Building, where the National Gallery houses their growing collection of modern and contemporary art.  Here are a few of my favorites from this building.

Alexander Calder's mobile "Untitled" (1976)

It moves entirely by air currents in the museum.

A wall of Georgia O'Keeffe's work:
Her series of Jack-In-The-Pulpit paintings

A favorite of mine, 

Henri Matisse's Open Window, Collioure

Pablo Picasso's Family of Saltimbanques

Le gourmet by Pablo Picasso (1901)

The Lovers by Pablo Picasso (1923)

Oh, how I just love the paintings of Wayne Thiebaud.
Cakes by Wayne Thiebaud (1963)

Almost anything by Henri Matisse I really enjoy. Here, his a large cut-out titled:

Henri Matisse's Large Decoration with Masks (1953)

Beasts of the Sea (1950)

Henri Matisse

Matisse was bedridden in the later part of his life.  His assistants painted large swaths of paper and then Matisse used scissors to make his "paintings".

Henri Matisse

Still Life with Apples on a Pink Tablecloth (1924)

Andy Warhol
Self-Portrait (1986)

Chuck Close

Fanny/Fingerpainting (1985)

Here's a close up so you can see his finger prints.  The variety of different values gives the painting it's three dimensional depth.

Now, we are hungry and Ronnie suggests we head back to the RV park but get off at the Metro's next stop, Chinatown.  There we stroll down a block or two where we find a great Chinese restaurant, "Chinatown Express".  The owner can be seen in the window making his famous handmade noodles and dumplings. Our food was delicious!

Chinatown Express

While strolling towards the restaurant, this window display of waving cats with the tiny solar battery gets my attention.  After "Googling" them,  I learn they are called "Japanese-Chinese Maneki Neko Lucky Waving Cats".

And so we have enjoyed another good day of sight-seeing and food in Washington DC.

More later..