National Gallery of Art

Written by Vu Tran

On Monday 11/15/2015, Oak Hill Christian School took a field trip to the National Gallery of Art. The trip was focused on Renaissance art. We took the metro train to Archives station, then walked to the gallery. When we arrived, we divided into two groups according to the two classes : art class and literature class; we each followed our own tour guide. I’m writing this as a student of the literature class.

Rembrandt's Lucretia

We sought, we hunted and we went after a lot of gems in the gallery. The most significant painting we saw was Alba Madonna by Raphael, painted in 1510. Our tour guide explained why it is a gem of the gallery : John the Baptist, Jesus and Mary were all looking at the cross, that’s first. Second, the pose of  Mary was unrealistic but she appeared to naturally cover both Jesus and John. Third, the painting was a circle, so we could focus more on the event happening in the picture. Finally, we couldn’t find any sharp lines sketched in the painting on any details such as the chin, the elbow… All of the features softly combined to create a masterpiece. We found another gem which the Omnibus class studied previously in the year: Rembrandt’s Lucretia. 

But the gems in the gallery were not only paintings, but also sculptures. Even though it wasn’t part of the trip, we managed to observe one sculpture : Little Dancer Aged Fourteen by Edgar Degas, made in 1878 and originally formed in wax. At this point, our tour guide had done her job but luckily there was a college art student over there who explained the statue to us: he said that this sculpture is famous because this is the only sculpture Degas ever exhibited publicly and it was through wax. Degas dressed her image with much detail from the hair, and the pose, to the cloth garments. And it was so real that people cast her in bronze after his death just in case the original statue became damaged. Through his sculpture, he portrayed a poor girl who danced for the Paris Opera, Marie van Goethem. Just in case you don’t know how big it is, here are some pictures we have (Asian for scale.)

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