The National Gallery

I've lived in DC for three years now, and I know that I don't take advantage of what the city has to offer. There are so many museums and annual events, it can seem overwhelming. But the parents wanted to go to the National Gallery of Art, somewhere I had yet to visit (ridiculous, I KNOW).

As a child, I was practically raised in parks and museums. We went to the Exhibit Museum of Natural History at UM at least once a month - where I ended up working for three years in undergrad - and the Detroit Institute of Arts a few times a year. There are things at the DIA that I will never forget - the wrought-iron spiral staircase, the Diego Rivera mural, and most especially my favorite painting: Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley. It is quite a morbid painting for a little girl to adore - a man is attacked by a shark while swimming in the Havana harbor. His foot has been bitten off, the men on the ship are trying desperately to save him, and you're not sure if he survives. I think that my dad would try to save it for last to surprise me, thinking that I had forgotten about it. But I knew - and can still picture - exactly where it hangs in the gallery.

So today, walking through the National Gallery, I turned the corner and saw the exact same painting - a little larger than the Detroit piece - hanging on the wall.


Here's a link to the piece at the National Gallery, and here's the piece at the DIA. They differ just slightly. I know that artists often painted several versions of a piece - this is just one of those instances. The Van Gogh self portrait at the National Gallery has a similar version hanging at the DIA. Obviously not the same, but similar enough to strike a chord in one's memory.

I love that I can go visit my favorite painting any time I want!