God Save The King

Yesterday afternoon I decided to revisit the National Gallery located in Trafalgar Square.  I previously stopped by the museum during my first weekend trip to Trafalgar.  The gallery contains over 2,000 paintings making it difficult to experience in a single trip.  On my return trip, I got to see many wonderful paintings as well as visit some of my favorites from the first time.  The most astounding piece that I saw was The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist. It is a large sketch by Da Vinci.  The sheer scale of the work and softness of the lines in the drawing were amazing.


Da Vinci's The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist

 Next, I took time to visit the National Portrait Gallery which can be found nestled next to the National Gallery.  This museum contains paintings, busts, and drawings of many important figures in British history.  During my trip I saw everyone from Winston Churchill to Charles Darwin to Charlotte Bronte.  One of my favorite sketches was a picture of Jane Austen.  It is thought to be one of the only original true likenesses of her.  Because she is one of my favorite authors, it was a very cool experience.  I also enjoyed looking at one of the special exhibitions entitled Bassano at the Ballet.  It was a series of black and white photographs of ballet dancers at various companies.  The composition of these pictures was beautiful.  I loved seeing the old costumes and wonderful staging for the portraits.

My favorite piece of the museum by far was a series of four paintings by Andy Warhol of Queen Elizabeth II.  They were bright colorful portraits and very modern.  I loved bold colors and unique portrayal of the Queen.  Typically royal portraits are very formal involving classical painting styles and colors.  The change of pace was spectacular and made a piece that caught my eye right away upon entering the museum.


Andy Warhol's Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II

 Additionally, I greatly enjoyed seeing what is referred to as the Darnley Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I.  This painting is one of the most famous of Elizabeth I and has been featured in many of my history textbooks over the years.


Darnley Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I

My evening ended with a trip to a pub located on Gloucester Road called the Gloucester Arms with three of my friends from my building: Catherine, Miranda, and Brittanee.  Together we will be traveling to Paris in under one week!  We had a fun time reflecting on our weeks and getting excited for our upcoming journey.

Today has been a long, busy day, but has also been one of the best to date in London.  This morning my Marketing class took a trip to the Brand Museum located in the Notting Hill area.  The field trip to the museum was meant to give us some inspiration for our paper assignment in which we will analyze the effects of macro-environmental trends on branding.  This museum was set up chronologically and contained what I can only imagine to be thousands of containers, advertisements, and pictures. It was really interesting to see how products and marketing has changed each decade since the Victorian era.  I particularly took an interest in the changing packaging and range of products from World War II into the 1950s.  Because of this, I am going to analyze the impact of economic changes following World War II on the marketing of household products. Additionally, I enjoyed seeing older toys such a Barbie's and older packaging of food brands.

Barbie's from the 1960s



Changing Corn Flakes Boxes

After returning from the museum I got a jump start on my research for my paper by visiting the Library located at the London Student Center.  I found some books and articles that will be of great help as I write my paper.

Following my research, I met up with my friends Kelsey and Brittanee to head to Oxford Circus. There we stopped into Banana Republic and H&M to check out the sales that are taking place through the end of the month.  After making a few purchases we headed to the Apple Store for a special event that was taking place. 

The event, called Meet the Filmmakers, was a panel discussion about the movie The King's Speech and featured Colin Firth and Tom Hooper. For those of you who know me well, you know how much I love Colin Firth and I'm sure can imagine how excited I was to see him in person!  In The King's Speech, Colin plays King George VI who overcomes his nervous stutter with the help of a speech therapist named Lionel Logue, who is played by Geoffrey Rush. Tom Hooper was the director of this film.  It was very exciting to see the panel and hear what both Colin and Tom had to say about the film before going to see the movie later in the evening.  Because we were some of the first people to arrive at the store for the event, we received a free bag!  They are book bags with the UK flag and say "God Save The King." For anyone interested, the event was recorded and will be released as a podcast next week on iTunes.

My free bag!

The panel

Colin Firth

After the event we headed to the Institut Francais to see the movie.  I thought that it was really great!  The cinematography was brilliant.  There were so many interesting camera angles that made each scene stand out and the classical soundtrack was perfectly worked into the flow of the film.  Because the movie was filmed mainly in London, I was excited to recognize many of the set locations. Colin Firth was AMAZING in this film.  It was great to see him in such a different role and I must say that he knocked the role out of the ballpark.  He definitely deserves the Golden Globe that he has already won for the role.