National Gallery of Art in Washington DC

Hi everyone. Have gotten several e-mails regarding our blog, so its good to know you are enjoying the pics of our adventures on the east coast. I discovered that if you click on any of the pictures in the blog, they will display full screen size - in case you want to see more details of the coastline, etc.

On a beautiful fall day (we've had nothing but those lately), Callie brought joy to our day by joining us for a trip by van, metro and foot to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. As we walked from the Smithsonian Metro stop to the National Gallery, we strolled through a butterfly garden along the way. We saw several monarch butterflies.

By the time we got near the gallery, the children were ready for lunch. We stopped to eat our picnic in the sculpture garden next to the gallery. We sat on a bench right across from this fountain - on our way back to the metro in the late afternoon, we walked back to the fountain so the children could dip their feet and cool them off before our trek to the metro stop.

One of the modern sculptures in the garden.


The National Gallery is on the National Mall so if you come out of the gallery and look right you see the Washington Monument...
...and if you look left you see our United States Capitol Building.

Ok, now let's go see some paintings!!!!!

This is Jonathan's favorite - The Railway by Edouard Manet. 1873. The art book we have actually has it titled Gare Saint-Lazare which is the name of the railroad station in Paris. Seth told us he really wanted to go inside the painting so he could see the trains and hold the puppy on the woman's lap :-) We have several childrens' books which help the children (and me!) appreciate and enjoy works of art. Whilst living near London and its National Gallery, I learned that teaching the children in fun ways about a few paintings ahead of time, which we will see in a particular gallery, exponentially increases their enjoyment. Its as if they have a relationship with the painting before they ever see it and then they respond as if meeting an old friend when they do see it hanging on the wall. Jonathan was searching every room in the gallery dilligently until we saw "his" railway painting. He was also most interested in the maritime scenes - expecially the battles. Callie read him several of our art books on the metro whilst I read some to Seth and the girls read the others together.

Faith and Christy's favorites of the day - both by Renoir. When they did their sketches, they both chose a fruit still life by Cezanne. Monet's Garden - we read a book about his garden about a year ago - "Linnea in Monet's Garden"

At the end of our visit, Callie stayed with the girls so they could sketch a painting in their sketch books. I took the boys outside and they enjoyed playing around the huge pillars and playing with leaves and nuts under some of the trees. While I sat on the steps and watched them frolick in the sunshine, I took a couple more pictures of the US Capitol and the Washington Monument.