National Gallery of Art Visit

After our long-overdue pigout at Phillip's Seafood Buffet on the Potomac, Fuzzy and I ventured into the city out of boredom and lethargy to cruise the streets. Many times these random meanderings have deposited us in the most wondrous of places Washington, DC has to offer. Today we passed the National Gallery of Art's Sculpture Garden. The Nasher Sculpture Garden in Dallas was a favorite of Fuzzy's, so he was eager to check this one out. As his mutant ability to find parking places once again proved uncanny, we decided it 'was meant to be'.

We stepped into a large garden with beautiful landscaping, decorative flowers and a huge fountain, all broken up by oddly placed blocks of stainless steel, a gigantic typewriter eraser, and one item that was a square of steel with rounded corners. Seriously, that was it. "Do Not Touch the Sculptures!" That doesn't apply to the pigeons, who seem to have the same opinion of the object as I did.

I don't get scuplture.

But I went along for the walk and exercise. We crossed the street to the National Gallery of Art exhibitions. The building is gigantic, which we've come to expect in the nation's capitol. Fuzzy wanted to see Richard Misrach's exhibit 'On the Beach'. The synopsis of the exhibit stated that 'a strange sense of disquietude pervades' the idyllic environment. The pictures were taken in the days following 9/11, and they show the uneasiness in people after the attacks. I saw a bunch of people lounging in the water, sun bathing on the beach and were totally relaxed. I'm so eager to find a beach now!

Although I don't enjoy looking at sculpture, I did enjoy the amazing paintings on display in the Gallery. Works by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Monet, Gaugin, Cezanne, and Van Gogh are there for the public to see, free!

The Houses of Parliament, Sunset by Claude Monet

Shipwreck by Claude Joseph Vernet

Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh

In DC, most of the museums shut down at 5pm, so we had an hour to peruse the huge exhibit, and still didn't get to all of it. We set out on foot to see the sights and came upon the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden.

The strangest exhibit I have seen was "The Last Conversation Piece." It consisted of five sculptures with the upper torso, head and shoulders of men and below the waist, they looked as if they had been stuffed into punching bags. Three of these 'men' stood with their heads together as if in a secret conversation while the remaining two stood a distance away from the cluster on either side, looking as if they were trying to eavesdrop.

I really don't get sculpture.

So after a day of culture, I gotta watch some NASCAR or Godzilla movies to counter the overdose.