In 1937, The National Gallery of Art was privately established for Americans by the United States Congress. Located in Washington D.C. on the National Mall, the National Gallery of Art is a museum that is free of charge and open to the public.
The museum has two parts: an indoor gallery and an outdoor gallery. The indoor gallery is composed of two different buildings: The East Building and The West Building, which are connected by an underground passage.
The museum is comprised of different paintings and sculptures from different time eras. Many of these artworks were funded by patrons during the Renaissance. A lot of the paintings and sculptures the museum has are western art from the Middle Ages to the present.
One sculpture that is very popular in the museum is the water fountain found at the entrance with the Roman God Mercury on the top of the fountain. Another piece of famous artwork in the museum is “The Holy Kinship” made of polychromed wood that represents many Christians in South Germany in the past.
For limited time, the museum also had painters all around the museum painting works of art. They answered questions about their work and allowed people to take photos. They also allowed people to get a close look at some of the artwork that will be displayed in the museum soon.
“It was a really cool place,” senior Casey Goettlicher said. “There was lots of different types of art I have never seen before.”
The museum also has paintings that date back as far as the 1300s. The outdoor gallery, also known as The Sculpture Garden, contains many different types of sculptures.
Similar to an actual garden, the Sculpture Garden contains sculptures which are surrounded by plants and bushes. It is very unique in style, you can find abstract sculptures all the way to fifty foot tall.
One famous sculpture in the Sculpture Garden is the “Thinker on the Rock” sculpted by British born artist Barry Flanagan. The sculpture is a gigantic creature sitting on a boulder in a thinking position.
“Some of the sculptures were so cool. I don’t understand where they got the ideas to create them,” freshman Zain Ghul said. “I understood some of the abstract. There was one that was just a giant circle, that I didn’t understand.”
The National Gallery of Art is a great place for people who appreciate the arts and want an insight on how others express themselves.