Brochures courtesy of Tate Britain

The Saltonstall Family, courtesy of Tate Britain

I'm not sure what it is about this painting, I just really like it. I think it has somehting to with the fact that it includes the dead wife/mother along with the new, living one, as if she's always there, living with them, but instead of being a disruptive presence, she exists harmoniously with the rest of the new family.

An Iron Forge, courtesy of Tate Britain

One of my favorite moments while in the Tate was walking into a gallery and encountering a rather trendy, smartly dressed black woman talking passionately about this 18th century painting to a group of people. Something about that just struck me. It wasn't anything like a stuffy, librarianesque guide that I think of as typical (or at least stereotypical) of tours in art museums.

Hope, by George Frederick, courtesy of Tate Britain

This painting is by far my favorite of all the paintings that I saw for the first time. There's something very haunting about it, and I love that's it's not mushy or sugar coated. Instead it shows a place that is dark, but not entirely without hope.

Pre-Raphialites

I love these works, so I was thrilled when I walked into a room full of them. I could ramble for hours about how great all the paintings were, but instead I'm just going to show you some of my favorites.

Ecce Ancilla Domini! (The Annunciation), by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, courtesy of Tate Britain	April Love, by Aurthur Hughes, courtesy of Tate Britain	'Take Your Son, Sir', by Ford Madox Brown, courtesy of Tate Britain (This one's unfinished, obviously, but it's still fascinating, particularly because it's subject is a woman asking her lover to take responsibility for his illigitamate son.)

One of my favorite things about Pre-Raphealite paintings are their use of color and light--they're so vibrant and full of life.

James Abbot McNeill Whistler

I discovered Whister recently, and fell in love with his work, so I was thrilled to find a room with just his pieces in it. These show a fair range of his style, plus they're the works that they had by him that I like best.

Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl, courtesy of Tate Britain	Three Figures: Pink and Grey, courtesy of Tate Britain	Nocturne: Blue and Gold - Old Battersea Bridge, courtsey of the Tate Britain

We saw the matinee performance of this play (writen by Stella Feehily) at the Royal Court Theatre. The show is a touring production done by the company Out of Joint.

The play is pretty crazy. It's interesting, and worth watching at least once, but it's left me so puzzled that I hardly know how to describe it. The actors were all very good. The set was simple, which seemed appropriate (although when I realized this "simple" set housed expensive moters and moving parts, I wondered why they bothered). Most of the props used were outlined on the set as if they were dead bodies, something almost entirely ignorable and with no apparent purpose. Perhaps this is unfair of me, but I honestly don't know what to make of it.

I bought a program for the show before it started and was reading an interview in the back with a war-correspondent. (A bad idea, in hindsight, but how was I supposed to know?) I should have known better just by looking at the cover photo (see picture at right), but from the interview I was expecting the play to be about the conflict in Darfur. It wasn't. To be fair, there is a lot about it in the play, but it seems to be more incidental than anything else: it was a catalyst, and really anything that caused a similar reaction could have been used. But then, I suppose that's a part of the point.

The play explores the line between art and commercialization, reality and reality TV, public and private life, commitment and constraint. The problem is that the play tries to do too much: it's become so complex that it's unfocused, and the ending feels forced. By the end I was left scratching my head and wondering what on earth the point was.