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National Gallery, London

Although museums and art galleries are recent inventions, the collection and display of prized objects has a long history. From ancient times people have collected objects thought to have special powers. Effigies of gods, relics of saints, and skulls of deceased ancestors are among the collected and ritually displayed items. Usually these collections were jealously guarded, and were usually the province of the wealthy and powerful.

The Louvre in Paris was the first truly public art museum, with origins in the French Revolution of the late eighteenth century. The idea was to make the treasures of the despised king available for public view. Reaction against the excesses of the Revolution delayed such developments in Britain. Only in 1824 did the National Gallery open, and even then it would be decades before funding and political support would allow the National Gallery to even begin to rival the Louvre. The original collection of paintings, donated by banker John Julius Angerstein, was displayed at Angerstein's house in Pall Mall. Like the Louvre the National Gallery aspired to egalitarian ideals. The location for the purpose built Gallery in Trafalgar Square was chosen because it seemed convenient both for the rich coming from the West End, and the poor coming from the East End.

The Gallery now displays thousands of paintings spanning the history of Western Art from 1250. 1250 was the date when art began to be given consideration in its own right, rather than existing as an extension of Christianity. Before this date we rarely know the name of artists. Art served the Church, and the artist was unimportant. But towards the end of the thirteenth century the first name emerges, that of the Italian painter and architect Giotto di Bondone. It was from Giotto's lifetime that art began to be considered important in its own right. Art left the confines of the Church. Now of course it seems to have come to rest in the grand church-like National Gallery. With such a long history of struggling to leave the confines of overarching institutions, it is perhaps not surprising that some of the more argumentative modern artists have turned on museums and art galleries. Filippo Marinetti made his feelings quite clear when he wrote his Futurist Manifesto in 1909: "Museums: cemeteries!... identical surely, in the sinister promiscuity of so many bodies unknown to one another."(Quoted Tate Modern The Handbook ed Iwona Blazwick and Simon Wilson P29) Within the National Gallery is displayed the work of artists who continually went out and showed that art could exist anywhere. An artist like John Constable, regarded as cosily respectable now, caused a stir during his lifetime by sitting in the English countryside painting hay wagons."My limited and abstracted art is to be found under every hedge and in every lane" he once wrote. But for all this argumentative rebellion, and claims that art lies anywhere, we instinctively want to separate off what we feel is special. Pictures are put in frames, and then in museums. The desire for orderliness exists alongside the equally strong desire to break free from such confines. And the National Gallery itself was rather rebellious once, with its shocking notion that some provision should be made for the people of the East End. In a sense the original spirit of the old Gallery is reflected in the wonderful Tate Modern housed in Gilbert Scott's Bankside power station, across the Thames. The new power station setting of the Tate Modern has very different connotations to the august grandeur of the National Gallery, but each in their time set out to do a similar thing, to widen the scope of the way art was thought about. Why not visit one and then the other. From the National Gallery walk down Northumberland Avenue to the Thames and cross via the Hungerford footbridge. Then take a short walk east along the Thames path to the Tate Modern.

Opening Times: The National Gallery is open 10am - 6pm, except Wednesdays: 10am - 9pm. Closed 24th - 26th of December and 1st of January.

Directions: The National Gallery is on the north side of Trafalgar Square in central London. The nearest Underground Station is at Charing Cross, a few minutes walk away in the Strand. Click here for an interactive map centred on the National Gallery.

Access: There is level access to all areas. Adapted toilet facilities are available. Sign language lectures and talks are organised. For people with sight difficulties there are "Art Through Words" events - for details use contact details below. Large print labels for the collection are available on request from the Gallery Assistants. A dispenser at the Gallery entrance supplies large print labels for most temporary exhibitions. Audio guides are available, with commentaries on over a thousand individual paintings, and on particular themes.

Contact:

telephone: 020 7747 2885

web site: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/default.htm