The Impressionists were a clever bunch, now rightly seen as one of the most popular movements in art history. But at the time they lived, not so much.
Their popularity today can be put down to one man, Paul Durand-Ruel, who would buy up 23 Monets at a time. When the establishment wouldn't but a single painting.
Whilst there I also raced through a few rooms of the National Gallery's permanent collection and came across the brilliant Holbein dual portrait of The Ambassadors (the one with a weirdly distorted skull at the bottom). A not-so-subtle bit of eavesdropping on a guide telling a group of Japanese students revealed it was painted around the time Henry VIII wanted to marry Anne Boleyn, neatly tying in with my current iPlayer favourite, Wolf Hall. Slightly obsessed with it - you can't beat Mark Rylance.
Here are some pictures I took while wondering around the gallery and Trafalfar Square (none of the actual exhibition; I hate that, when people take pictures of the pictures).
Gift Horse on the Fourth Plinth, Trafalfar Square.
The National Gallery
Nelson's Column from the National Gallery.
