Apparently, if you’re in DC and are looking for a place to sit down a while, get your thoughts down, and have something tasty to eat all you have to do is wander a block or two away from the Mall and keep your eyes open. I’m in a little cafe that specializes in flatbread sandwiches and salads, enjoying a view of rush-hour traffic accompanied by decent music, free refills, and wi-fi.

I’ll head over to the National History Museum shortly; they’re open late, and I may have given them short shrift yesterday. Plus, I need some souvenirs.

Amazing pattern

I spent the day at the Freer, Sackler and National galleries, immersed in the finest artwork from the past fifteen hundred years or so. I found myself fascinated by two aspects of art today, composition and ornamentation. In looking at the exquisite pottery and late bronze work of China and Iran, I found I was stunned by the intricacy of the patterning used. In my foray to the National Gallery, I kept being struck by the careful composition that was involved in the masters’ paintings. And then in the exhibit on royal armor from 15th and 16th century Spain and the paintings thereof, the two themes collided beautifully, and I found myself marveling at the detail in the context of the elegant compositions.

I saw Renoirs and Matisses and Whistlers and Degas and Monets and Manets and the self-portrait by VanGogh, and got to examine the brushwork that went into each. Massive canvases a story tall, tiny miniatures in little cabinets, sculptures and jewelry and weapons of war.

Geometry

There’s a fugue involved in post-art-museum browsing, as there is when I’ve been to the zoo. Instead of seeing people as the animals they are, as I do after looking at animals all day, when I’ve been exposed to artwork I see the people around me as art. Every face I see through the window of a car is a portrait; the couple at the next table are telling a story with the way that they’re sitting. The world around me has become luminously beautiful.

I suppose the truth of the matter lies somewhere between the two. We are animals, and we are art.