Impressionism at the Paris 1874 Exhibit at the National Gallery of Art

Last week we went in to town for a morning walk. We stopped in at the National Gallery of Art to see the Paris 1874 Impressionist Moment Exhibit. Since the exhibit has just opened there was a twenty minute wait to get in to the gallery. And once in the gallery it was much too crowded for my taste! I am by no means an Art connoisseur - in fact I never really cared to visit art museums. Now we enjoy walking through the building and visiting both the old and new exhibits. And there is always plenty of opportunity to take photos for my weekly challenge. We didn’t spend a lot of time observing each painting because we knew we would probably visit again. It was difficult to get a close up view anyway because of the crowds. But I was happy to see several of the paintings that have been stuck in my head since first seeing them many years ago on greeting cards and posters. I always liked the Impressionism vibe - the colors and the subjects. We even visited Monet’s haunts when we were with our friends who live in France over twenty years ago. So this is a compilation of some of the art we saw. 

Paris 1874 at the National Gallery of Art

We visit the National Gallery of Art all of the time. When we lived on Capitol Hill we would oftentimes have lunch after a morning walk. Now when we drive in to town we like to visit any new exhibit, but it’s also a great place to get out of the extreme heat and cold. Last week we stopped I. To see the Paris 1874 exhibit. It was all about Impressionism and Monet and others. Since the exhibit just opened and had a lot of press, there was a twenty minute wait time. This exhibit was next to the regular gallery of Monets, and we could see the line coming down the hallway from the lovely courtyard. There were a lot of staff and a lot of people. It was like being at Disneyworld or any other place where the crowd is in single file winding its way to the entrance. There was a film playing that showed the streets of Paris in the old days and an explanation of the art when it was first exhibited in 1874. I am no art historian but I’ve always like Monet and Impressionism. The colors are dreamy and pleasing to the eye. When we finally got in it was much too busy for my taste. At some points the rooms were so full of people all I wanted to do was pass right through them. Luckily we will have ample opportunity to visit again. And we did see the paintings that we wanted to see. It was an “experience.”