A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to the National Gallery

It poured with rain yesterday. First time, and it's stopped today. I decided I was going to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon in the National Gallery, but I didn't make it. First I noticed a market in a lane when I got off the bus, so I wandered over to see what it was and it was Petticoat Lane, only not the one I went to last week. Actually, it was the same one but greatly expanded and trickling down through another street for a few blocks. Even though it was raining, it was packed with people. It seems to be a good place to buy bargains. I asked the police if I could take their photo. They asked me if I had anything valuable in my pack. I said yes, another camera, and they warned me to wear it on my front. They had just been speaking to a woman who had her wallet taken from her backpack. Pickpockets, or should I say pickpacks, abound here. I can hardly get my pack open easily myself, but as they are probably more well practised than I, so I wore my pack on my front. There is quite a noticeable police presence in London. They are everywhere and often in these fluorescent vests which make them even more noticeable.
I took the tube to the stop nearest the National Gallery, but on my way there I noticed the National Portrait Gallery and decided to pop in there as well. I never do make it to the National Gallery next door because I spend the afternoon at the Portrait Gallery. It has three floors and many rooms full of...well...portraits.
I think of Jennifer S. when I see the intricate detailed painting on some of the clothing in the portraits. Also when I look at the miniatures show cases.
What I really notice though is that IT'S A MAN'S WORLD! As if I haven't noticed this before, but when confronted with portraits only, especially historical portraits, you would get the idea that the world revolved around royalty, war and science...and MEN. Very little evidence of women, unless they were married to someone, or someone's mistress. Even in the 19th/20th century their is about 1 portrait of a woman to every ten of men!
Isabella Mary Beeton AUTHOR OF HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT BOOK Queen Victoria QUEEN Lucie, Lady Duff Gordon AUTHOR/TRANSLATOR Jenny Lind SINGER The Bronte Sisters AUTHORS Elizabeth Barrett Browning POET Violet Manners ARTIST George Eliot NOVELIST Annie Rogers PROMOTER OF WOMEN'S HIGHER EDUCATION Dame Alice Ellen Terry ACTRESS Louise Jopling ARTIST Emmeline Pankhurst SUFFRAGETTE Dame Maud McCartney NURSE Amy Johnson AVIATOR It certainly does paint a different picture of the world when you focus on famous women's accomplishments.





I did see a very interesting digital portrait of Susan Adele Greenfield, Baroness of Greenfield b. 1955, Professor of Pharmacology, Oxford University, the first-ever woman director of the Royal Institution. Her area of specialization is the brain and she is also active in popularizing scientific ideas. The portrait is done by Tom Phillips (and here I thought he lived in Calgary and played with a band called The Men of Constant Sorrow!) Anyway, this was an interesting portrait as it was constantly yet subtly changing. If you walked past it, you might give it a glance, but if you walked by it a few minutes later it would look totally different and you might take note of it. It consisted of computer generated drawings and video and was made up of 169 drawings on paper, drawings onto computer screeen and short sections of video. This makes for 22,500 frames running on the computer. It certainly held my attention for quite a while.