The National Gallery

After visiting the Tate Modern I decided to leave and go and visit the National Gallery. Inside are many famous paintings by some of the most well known artists throughout the world. I went to see the famous sunflowers of Van Gogh only to find that I became more interested in his painting of two crabs and a portrait of a peasant woman. The two crabs were more interesting to me as I had never seen them before unlike Sunflowers which have been depicted man times through my life without actually seeing the works in it's original form. The crabs were interesting to me as they were such a peculiar subject to paint on their own. No seaside, no rocks no real context apart from a study of the crabs themselves. One belly up the other in a more usual position allowed the viewer to see a crab as a whole within an image. The other piece which was a portrait struck me as it was not in the style Van Gogh is usually associated with, the style conformed more to what others may have painted in his time. This was unusual for me and found this rather unexpected, perhaps this was before he developed his heavier stroked approach that we have become accustomed to seeing.
Another painting that struck a chord with me was titled Whistlejacket. The painting is of a horse and was created by George Stubbs. The painting seemed to dominate the room even though other works were larger, the room itself was huge. This was due to the striking nature of the painting which can be seen below. I drew a quick sketch of this horse just to remind me to look it up later, all images discussed are shown below.