Staycation: Day Two

In which Jenn and Jake run around Gallery Place (and other galleries) and apparently don't know what time things close!

We planned on seeing a lot on Day Two of the Staycation. (Not as much as Day Three, but that's another post.) The goal was to head out to Gallery Place, hit up the National Portrait Gallery, get some lunch in Chinatown, head down to both the East and West wings of the National Gallery, and then to the US Botanical Garden for a nature-y close to our day. And we accomplished most of that...Be advised, if you go to the Botanical Garden, it closes at 5:00. The website says 7:00, but it doesn't specify that the outside part closes at 7, while the inside part closes at 5. No big, we went back this morning, but it was still a chunk of time walking in the DC summer-hot-n-humid air.

We had a great time at the galleries, though...details and pictures after the jump!

First thing we did was hit up the National Portrait Gallery, one of those sites I'd never been to before, but had always meant to. It was pretty awesome. The first thing we did was walk around and looked at Matthew Brady photographs; a good number of them were of Civil War-era actors, and it was cool to get to look at photos of people I'd only ever read about in my theatre history books. We didn't get too far into any of the other exhibits before we both realized we were incredibly hungry. We figured we'd come back if there was time after all of the other things we had set aside to see that day, and off we went.

A quick walk on 6th St. NW brought us to Chinatown Express, better known as "that place where the guy makes fresh noodles in the window." We only needed a quick glance at the menu; Jake ordered pork bun, and I had steamed dumplings. SO good! It's good to know a bit of "Chinatown" still exists in Chinatown--which seems now to be typified by "Hooters" or "Anne Taylor" written in Chinese underneath the American sign. (But I digress.)

After our fortune cookies, we headed to the National Gallery's West Building, to see some Renaissance art. What can you say about the West Building? It's gorgeous. Nothing you haven't seen before in books, but seeing the paintings up close makes them so much better. (Yes, yes, trite, I know. But it's so true.) I love looking at Titian's works, particularly, and the Ginevra d'Benci (DaVinci's only work in America) is practically transcendent.

We made our way over to the East Building, and after spending way too long marveling over Calder's mobiles, got a chance to look at the temporary Munch exhibit (which has one of my favorite pieces, "Vampire"), and the Rothko Chapel--partially transplanted from Houston--which was very interesting. I'm a fan of Rothko's work, but I've never seen his all-black pieces. Paired with the music that was composed for them, the space felt very meditative.

We headed back to the West Building; on our way through the Gift Shop (dontcha know you have to go through the Shop to get from building to building), we had seen a poster for a Ginsberg exhibit we had missed. We had to go through the Chester Dale exhibit...and I'm so glad we did! Dale was a collector (to say the least), and some of the most wonderful Impressionist and Modern pieces wound up in his hands. I got to see one of my favorite Picasso paintings, "The Lovers." On to the Ginsberg exhibit--a collection of his photographs of his friends, complete with extensive captions in his own hand. Very cool.

After that, we made our way over to the Botanical Gardens, and found it closed, as previously mentioned. Grr. At least we had more time for the Portrait Gallery, but we had to walk both ways in the heat and humidity...Ugh.

On our way back, we took a detour through the Sculpture Garden. I don't blame the folks who were knee-deep in the fountain one bit. Some of the pieces were pretty spectacular.

We saw three very cool exhibits when we got to the Portrait Gallery: one was on the history of portraiture of American Presidents (everything from post-modern Clinton and Kennedy to posed-to-hell Eisenhower and Adams); one was a look at modern portraits (a striking Toni Morrison, a technologically superb Chuck Close, and everything in between); and the last was a Norman Rockwell retrospective...from the collections of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. (OK, it was technically in the National Museum of American Art, but they share the same building, so...) I forget that Rockwell isn't all about unabashed sentimentality, and this was a good reminder.

Tomorrow: Day o' Smithsonians!