In the know
As the National Gallery celebrates its 200th anniversary this year, we take a look at some of its most iconic paintings…
The UK is home to some of the most stunning works of art in the world, and there can be nothing more pleasurable than visiting a gallery to view some of them. Last year, more than three million people visited the National Gallery in London’s Trafalgar Square, which houses some 2,300 paintings, including works by famous names such as Titian, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Gogh and Monet.
It’s not surprising so many of us like visiting art galleries.
The oldest painting is Tuscan artist Margarito d’Arezzo’s The Virgin And Child Enthroned, which dates back to 1263-4.
When we look at a work of art we think is beautiful, there’s an instantaneous release of the brain chemical dopamine, which is linked to feelings of pleasure.
‘There’s nothing like actually seeing the real thing up close,’ says art expert Richard Fitzwilliams. ‘If you look at a picture of a famous painting in a book, it’s a flat representation that can never do justice to the often glorious colours and intricate brushwork. My favourite National Gallery painting is Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire.
During the Second World War, some of the paintings were stored underground in a Welsh slate mine to keep them safe from German bombing raids.
Even though I’ve seen it many times, I always go and have a look at it when I’m there because it’s so majestic and the colours are astonishing.
It feels like going to visit an old friend.’
OUR NATION’S FAVOURITES
Four of the most popular works hanging at The National Gallery
Instantly recognisable, this oil on canvas image created by Dutch artist Van Gogh is one of five surviving sunflower paintings he produced to decorate his house in the South of France. It’s really worth seeing this vibrant, expressive work in person to admire the texture of the swirling brush strokes and vivid, thickly-applied colours. It was painted just two years before Van Gogh died, at the age of 37, after shooting himself in the chest.
One of the world’s most intriguing paintings, this oil on wood of Italian merchant di Arnolfini and his wife, surrounded by expensive objects, first went on show at the gallery in 1843. Victorians were shocked, thinking it showed a pregnant woman getting married, but it’s now believed women at the time held their bulky gowns this way. Another theory is that the wife had died and the painting is a memorial to her. And is the artist reflected in the mirror? A Latin inscription above it translates as: ‘Jan van Eyck was here.’ Experts say it poses more questions than it can answer.
This shows the 1838 final journey of the
