Westminster Abbey & The National Gallery

The field trips today were amazing. Westminster Abbey was more beautiful than I had imagined. The room that grabbed my interest the most was the Poet's Corner. I felt like there were a lot of extraordinary individuals there that I actually had heard of. Geoffrey Chaucer who wrote "The Canterbury Tales" was the first literary figure to be buried there. It was interesting to find out that he was not buried there at first for his literary skills but because he was a civil servant at Westminster. It wasn't until 150 after his death that he was given literary recognition for his work and was moved to the more noticable spot. They also have memorials for Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and William Shakespeare. Poets's Corner is not only dedicated to writers. George Frederick Handel, a German composer, is also buried there. He was famous for his music, mostly opera, and around 3,000 mourners gathered when he died. Having literary figures and composers buried and given memorials in Westminster represents some of the art forms that were important during those times. Poet's Corner shows us that writing, poetry, and music were all respected art forms within the culture. Honored artists were not only those with a paint brush. It shows that within the culture of this time, some of the things people enjoyed doing were reading poetry and listening to classical music. Also, Poet's Corner illustrates how art and religion were intertwined within the culture. Most writings and compositions were created specifically for religion or had religious undertones to them. Poet's Corner gives us a little insite into the reality that existed many years ago.

For the second part of the field trip, I chose to go to The National Gallery which was an extremely good decision. There were so many beautiful art pieces it was hard to chose one to focus on. I spent most of my time with the 18th to early 20th century paintings. Of course I enjoyed Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers and A Wheatfield with Cypress and was shocked that I actually got to see them in person. I loved Claude-Oscar Monet's work as well. The effects of light and color within The Water-Lily Pond and Irises were so infatuatingly beautiful. I felt like I could stare at them for hours. But it was the paintings by Camille Pissarro that really caught my eye. I think it may have been because he painted different views of Paris and I just visited Paris this past weekend. The Louvre Under Snow was my favorite. It showed a view of the Louvre on a winters day covered in a blanket of snow. Pissarro often showed different weather conditions within his work. I enjoyed seeing this painting because it showed a different view of a city that I had just seen a few days earlier. The snow and the grey colors paint a type of isolation among the scenery which was completely different from what I experienced. There are boats in the Seine River but no people can be seen. Pissarro makes the city seem so calm.