Day 4: Turner, the Thames, Trafalgar, and the Terpsichorean
June 17, 2025
[Click on any photo for a larger view]
By this day, the jet lag was mostly gone. We had an easy morning and evening planned, and a mostly unplanned afternoon. We had changed our mind about one thing. The Tate Britain and Tate Modern art museums had both been on our list, and we were going to go to the Modern first. But I wanted to see some Turners (at the Britain) and so we decided to go there first in case museum fatigue would later put that out of play.
The Tate Britain is near the banks of the Thames about two miles due south of the British Museum and an even longer walk from our hotel. But it was a short subway ride from King's Cross to Victoria Station followed by an easy walk to get to the Tate. The museum was much less crowded than the British Museum.
The Tate Britain, formerly known as the National Gallery of British Art, is one of four museums in the Tate network of museums in England. It features mostly British art from the time of the Tudors to more contemporary art. The Tate Britain is known for its extensive collection of paintings by J. M. W. Turner, but has many paintings by other British artists including William Blake, John Constable, William Hogarth, Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds, James Whistler, Peter Paul Rubens, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and other pre-Rafealites, as well as modern and contemporary artists such as Henry Moore, Francis Bacon, and David Hockney. The art is arranged roughly by historical period. The showcase is the collection of Turners, which takes up several rooms.
The Tate Britain
We gravitated first to the Turner rooms. J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851) was a prodigious painter all his life. He also produced prints and watercolors. He was a boy genius, producing some of his first paintings as a teenager. Turner started in what is known as the Romantic style, similar in some ways to his contemporary Constable, and painted imaginative landscapes and (often violent) seascapes with expressive coloring. He later bypassed the Realist movement, setting out to paint in his own style, which became more impressionistic. His later work, though championed by critics such as Ruskin, was controversial to his contemporaries. In his late career, his paintings became more abstract. Today he is revered as a precursor to Impressionism and the modern abstract art movements that arose in the decades after his death. Turner left a small fortune to various charitable and artistic causes. He also left all of his completed works in his possession to the British nation.
While we were looking at the Turners, a docent gave a short talk on Turner, focusing on one of his later abstract seascapes. He did a great job in 15 minutes. A nice retirement gig for an art buff.
J. M. W. Turner self-portrait
A violent storm seascape by Turner
Impressionistic Turner landscape
Impressionistic seascape by Turner
Queen Mabs Cave by Turner
Constable seascape
Napoleon in exile by Turner
After the Turners, we did a quick tour of much of the rest of the museum, which is quite large. We got a good appreciation for the scope of art from the British Isles. We saw the Moore sculptures, works by Hogarth, paintings by Blake, and paintings by 19th and century artists including the pre-Raphealites and others.
Seated Woman by Henry Moore
Portrait of a Young Woman by Meredith Frampton
Gin Lane by Hogarth
Lamech and His Two Wives by William Blake
The Crucifixion: "Behold Thy Mother" by Blake
Illustration of a scene from Dante's Inferno by Blake
Illustration of a scene from Dante's Purgatorio by Blake
Illustration of a scene from Dante's Paradiso by Blake
Brown Eyes by George Clausen
Ophelia by the pre-Raphaelite John Everett Millais
Christ Washing the Feet of the Disciples by the pre-Raphaelite Ford Madox Brown
Christ in the House of His Parents by Millais
After we left the Tate, the Thames was just a block away, so we decided we might take a walk along it on the sidewalk toward the Palace of Westminster, aka the Houses of Parliament, about 20 minutes away. (You can walk on the actual banks, but see below.) We didn't get very far before we saw an Uber river boat about to come and dock. We decided to take a ride down the river and see some sights from the boat. An Uber river boat is a relatively cheap and easy way to see sights along the Thames. It's not a guided tour, but in a way it's better. Not too crowded. The boat zig-zags to stops on either bank as it heads down river. We saw the Palace of Westminster and Big Ben, got a view of the London Eye. (The Eye is a tourist trap: Pay a lot of money and wait in a long line for a slow ride to a view you can get for free somewhere else. More on that tomorrow.) The London Eye is adjacent to the London County Hall, a large complex of buildings that used to function as a seat of county government. It now houses numerous tourist traps including Shrek's Adventure, the London Aquarium, the London Dungeon, and others. All probably nice, but all crowded and expensive, and all the likes of which you can wait in line at other places to see. We passed the Tate Modern, an impressive, even forbidding looking modern building. We took the boat a few miles down river and got off near the Tower of London.
The Thames is a famously muddy tidal estuary. You can walk along its banks, but you have to be wary of mud and the tides. And don't pick anything up! To do so requires a mudlarking permit (£35). Mudlarkers are apt to find anything from typical river junk to crossbow bolts, Roman coins, and other detritus from humanity's long settlement along the banks. They can keep what they find or sell it to a museum.
The Palace of Westminster, aka the Houses of Parliament with Big Ben, view from a Thames Clipper Uber river boat
London Eye and the London County Hall, housing the largest concentration of tourist traps in London
Walkway to the Uber river boat pier near the Tower Bridge. The masted ship is not the Uber boat.
The Tower of London
After disembarking on the south bank, we walked down river to the Tower Bridge, crossed it and walked past the Tower of London. That fortress has a lot to see, but we decided to take it in the next day. We opted instead to take the Route 9 bus back toward Trafalgar Square. The Route 9 bus passes near several of the sights of London including the Tower of London, St. Paul's Cathedral, the Royal Albert Hall, the National Gallery, Fleet Street, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Kensington Palace and Kensington Gardens, and several other spots. But it was hot in London, and the bus was crowded. We didn't enjoy the ride much. It's definitely not the way to see London in the midst of the summer tourist season. So after about a half-hour or so ride, we got off near Trafalgar Square.
The Thames with the Tower Bridge in the background
Tower Bridge over the Thames
Nelson's Column at Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square is a large public area that includes fountains, equestrian statues, and an event space, as well as Nelson's Column. Lord Nelson was the commander of the British Fleet, which defeated the navies of France and Spain in the pivotal Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars. The square is faced by the National Gallery and is quite close to other sights such as St. Martin-in-the-Fields and Buckingham Palace. There was some construction work going on in part of the squares and barriers prevented us from getting a good walk through. As I said, the square is also used as an event space. We found during our stay London that here are numerous such event spaces, including on at King's Cross Station, which to our dismay usually furnished loudly amplified and fairly obnoxious music.
It was mid-afternoon and we were getting hungry. Unfortunately, since most of the day after our visit the Tate had been off-the-cuff, we didn't know we'd end up near Trafalgar and didn't know where we should go. A lot of the restaurants nearby looked like tourist traps or were serving food we didn't want. In the end we went with what we thought would be a safe alternative: Italian. But it wasn't safe or Italian. We stepped into the Pezzo Italian Restaurant. It looked like there was a genuine Italian pasticceria in the front, but the wait staff should have been our first clue: all Arab or Indonesian, which would have been fine if that's the kind of food we were after. But the service was inattentive, the wine selection was sketchy, there was no draught beer, the food was a step below Olive Garden, and judging by the prices, it was indeed a tourist trap. We ate because we were hungry, but left discouraged by our slumping batting average at finding a decent meal in London.
St. Martin in the Fields at Trafalgar Square
We would be heading back to Trafalgar Square that evening for a concert, and so we took the subway back to our hotel for a rest. We had tickets to a choral concert at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, a stone church at the northeast corner of Trafalgar Square. The area around St. Martin-in-the-Field has been the site of Christian worship and burial since at least the 5th Century. The first mention of the church was in the 13th century. It's name derives from the fact that it was then located in open fields between the cities of London and Westminster, which have long since blended into urban sprawl. The current church building dates from the early 18th century. It functions as an Anglican place of worship, but has for some decades also hosted high quality choral and orchestral music within its walls. In the basement of the church, there is a venue for jazz called The Crypt.
We were at St, Martin's to hear the ORA Singers perform music in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the death English Renaissance choral composer Orlando Gibbons. The group would be performing compositions by Gibbons as well as modern choral music composed in honor of Gibbons.
We got to the church early to have a look around. I had a coffee in the bistro in The Crypt because my body was still not on London time. Then we went upstairs to the gift store and then find our seats. The church, with its large windows in the altar area and magnificent pipe organ in the back was familiar to us from watching music performed there on YouTube. On closer inspection, there are many beautiful decorations in the church, especially in the altar area. On the wall to the right of the altar is a gilded mosaic of the Virgin Mary. To the left of the altar is a small sculpture of a famous story about St. Martin of Tours. Martin, a 4th century native of what is now Hungary whose father was a senior officer in the Roman military. He grew up in Italy and converted to Christianity as a child against the will of his parents. As a young man and still a catechumen learning the Christian faith, he was a Roman soldier stationed in Gaul. One cold day, he met a rag-clad beggar in the street and cut his cloak in two. That night he had a dream where Jesus appeared wearing the half cloak he had given the beggar. After he was released from military service, Martin pursued his faith with zeal and eventually became the bishop of Tours. He was instrumental in the spread of Christianity in Gaul. He is the patron saint of many things, including soldiers. He was particularly revered by the Franks, who would carry a relic of his cloak ("cappellanu") in a special tent guarded by priests when they went to battle. From this practice, we get the office of chaplain and the word 'chapel'.
We settled in for what turned out to be a wonderful concert. It was a great mix of old and new performed by great singers with a masterful conductor.
Altar at St. Martin in the Fields
Blessed Among Women
Organ at St. Martin in the Fields
St. Martin of Tours gives half his cloak to a beggar
After the show, we took the subway back to King's Cross. The outdoor seating at the pub next our hotel was full, so we decided to go to a pub a couple of blocks from our hotel. There were three girls sitting a a bench outside playing cards. We struck up a conversation with them. It turns out they were visiting from Aberdeen in Scotland. They were college friends. One of the girls, who was studying politics, was going to be meeting a Member of Parliament the next day on some weighty matter that I've forgotten since. The other two were there for moral support. We ended up having a long conversation with them. The one who was meeting an MP was interested in the American political landscape. She was the most outspoken and had the thinest Scottish accent of the trio. The quiet one had a thicker, genuine Aberdeenshire accent. We told them we were heading up to Scotland and they were thrilled. We thought about the girl meeting the MP the next day as we again went near Westminster Palace. And (spoiler alert), we met them again a couple days later.
A trio of Scottish Lassies. The one on the right was going to interview a Member of Parliament the next day.
Back to the Beginning
Comments
Post a Comment