Art Day

Trip Start Sep 13, 2012

Trip End Sep 22, 2012

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Flag of United Kingdom London, England, United Kingdom
Wednesday, September 19, 2012

htAs the Tate Modern is one of our favorite places in London, we decided to begin there. What an amazing place it is! The building itself is remarkable. Converted from an industrial power plant, its entry halls are like sculptures themselves, with the people who are dwarfed by the vast spaces seeming to be details on a large work. The museum is arranged thematically and has a fascinating collection of twentieth century art, most of it postwar. Numerous art students were there sketching works and being coached by teachers.

While Marty stayed on, I walked over the Millennium Bridge (no Deatheaters today!) and caught a bus to Trafalgar Square. After making a lunch of the delicious bread pudding in the Crypt Cafe at St Martin in the Fields, I walked over to the National Gallery. After a morning viewing contemporary and avant garde art, I longed for old stuff

Tate Modern

. So I started with the thirteenth century and worked forward. I particularly liked sitting for a while by some works of Leonardo da Vinci. It was moving to contemplate the drawing and picture after having seen his engineering notes and sketches at the British Library.

Meanwhile, Marty left the Tate and walked a bit on the south bank of the Thames, passing the reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, and visiting the Southwark Cathedral. We had not realized that London south of the Thames has been its own diocese, Southwark, for about a hundred years. Though the church's status as a cathedral started then, there has been a church on this site for at least a thousand years. Before it became the cathedral, it was St. Savior Church. (Jessica and family, take note!)

In the evening, we went to see a production of Henry V in a tiny theatre above the Red Lion Theatre Pub. We planned to eat there only to find that the pub only has food at lunch. So we went around the corner for pizza. That was fine, as we were getting a bit bored with pub food anyway.

The production was interesting:
http://www.oldredliontheatre.co.uk/henry-v.htm
It drew parallels between Henry's war and Bush and Blair's actions in Iraq. We found it interesting and often well acted but flawed. I don't think they really brought off the comparison in a consistent way. But it was fun to get out to some experimental theatre in this great theatre city.

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