National Gallery of Art, West Building, Washington D.C.

15 Mar, 2026

Visited March 8, 2026

It's so strange how mutable human perception is. I've wandered through these galleries before and did not remember any remarkable paintings from these rooms.

^{The Assumption of the Virgin, c.1630, Nicolas Poussin}

^{Joseph and Potiphar's Wife, 1649, Giovanni Francesco Barbieri}

^{Madonna of the Goldfinch, c.1696, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo}

In older paintings the blue is less vivid, because their pigment extraction methods were more primitive.

^{Madonna and Child with God the Father Blessing and Angels, c.1370, Jacopo di Cione}

Sometimes it's used in a more subtle fashion.

^{Saint Michael Slaying the Dragon, c. 1640, Sassoferrato}

Maybe ummm I just don't get Vermeer, but sometimes it's perhaps too subtle. I think he probably could have gotten away with using azurite blue here.

^{Woman Holding a Balance, c.1664, Johannes Vermeer}

On the flipside, sometimes it's splashed around quite gaudily.

^{The Feast of Herod and the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, c.1461, Benozzo Gozzoli}

There's gold foil everywhere too in that piece. My headcanon is that some nouveau riche merchant family paid to have the pigment by the square inch.

Here's the winner of my gallery visit (i.e. my favourite of the trip). It was tucked away in a dim little corner close to the Vermeers, and so luminous it looks like it's somehow backlit by a light behind the canvas. I remember looking around to see if there was some tiny spotlight pointed right at it, but not seeing anything. Even seeing the image on my screen now, I feel the urge to squint a bit since it seems too bright somehow.

^{Imaginary River Landscape, 1670, Herman Saftleven}

I kept leaning closer to get a better look, trying to figure out if there was some trick to it. Then at some point an invisible sensor tripped, and a speaker nearby boomed out "YOU ARE TOO CLOSE TO THE PAINTING. PLEASE STEP BACK.", and scared a bejesus out of me. As I wandered through the Dutch galleries, I kept hearing that same reminder over and over, only ever from that corner.

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