The National Gallery of British Art (a.k.a. the Tate Britain) is a wonderful museum that incorporates both historical pieces of art with modern pieces as well. This is a large museum with many rooms so it is best to get a map of the gallery before exploring. Unfortunately I do not have any pictures of this gallery because photography was not allowed. There is a café and shop that are nice to go to after seeing the art. The Tate Britain took me about two and a half hours to see everything.


The main floor has the shop and café. The stairs to the left lead to exhibits in chronological order from about the 1500’s to present. This makes it really easy to see how art has progressed. At the beginning of the 1500’s some of the paintings can be vapid but, as it progresses technique is improved and the paintings become more expressive. The first painting that caught my eye was The Cholmondeley Ladies. This was a painting of two women who look almost identical and both have a child which also looks identical to the other. There is an inscription on the bottom of the painting that states, “Born on the same day, Married on the same, and brought to bed the same day.” This painting is not austere, being painted with the women wearing lovely gowns with many decorations and the children tightly bound with bright red cloth.


Two other paintings stood out to me. One was by John Singer Sargent called Carnation. This had two little girls lighting Chinese lanterns. The painting was filled with all the colors of the rainbow. It had purples, blues, greens, pinks, and yellows streaks that reflected off the children’s faces. This was one of my favorites. The other was by John Brett called The British Channel Seen from the Dorsetshire Cliffs. This showed only water with spots of light blue and teal streaks that swirled through the water. The sun from above was shining down and made the water glisten; it was a beautiful painting.


There are many other beautiful paintings and the modern art was very cool to see. There was a long hallway of four rooms filled with one piece of art work that was black plastic in the shapes of triangles that went from the floor to the ceiling going up and down. A man had painted right on the wall with his hands to make a large design of swirls and splatters. There was a movie that was ephemeral but it made a point.


I really enjoyed my time in Tate Britain and suggest that if visiting try to make time for this exhibit of art. Keep checking and send me a post of what you think.