Late today I spent some time at the National Portrait Gallery and was delighted to find so rich an assortment of people, from colonial days through the Civil War to the Golden Age and on into modern times. Here are some samples, and what a range of emotion they have. The colonial portraits had a more intimate emotional effect than usual for formal portraits. So glad to see included people inside and outside the power structure. One corridor had rows of tiny Matthew Brady portraits of everyone from PT Barnum to Harriet Tubman. Upstairs in the Presidential collection I enjoyed the portraits of Lincoln, Grant, TR, FDR, among others.
Above the Portrait collections was a remarkable group of American art work, some traditional, some dada/surreal, some pop and post-pop. It wasn't until I got on the Metro home that I realized how long I had been standing and walking around in that place.
At the end of this slideshow is Indiana's Figure 5, inspired via Charles Demuth by William Carlos Williams's "The Great Figure"
Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
firetruck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city.