And the Arts

But Washington is a city of the arts and formal culture.  The Smithsonian with its 19 free museums provides an overwhelming choice of exhibits, objects, interactive environments.   So one walks from the outdoor sculpture gardens to an exhibit of Southern Indian bronzes to a show of contemporary native American painting and craft to Chinese cave art from the early Buddhist periods. 

 

 

All seen within a single space...museums connected by underground passages.  I had been reading a history of Venice and, then, in the National Gallery, an exhibit of the Venetian painter, Canaletto and his rivals...paintings of the scenes I had been reading about.  The museums bring the world to you....ok, kind of out of context, but a lot closer than the words in a book. 

 

And the art of a more political nature...the memorials to past presidents, historic figures, and wars (lots of memorials to wars and, yet, it is the memory of peace that needs to be preserved).   Washington occupies a central space in our political psyche...but also as a repository for part of our aesthetic sensibility.  

 

 Of course, other forms of art abound....the brightly painted hotdog stands for example.  Art with a more commercial and utilitarian bent.  Still one is as valid as the other...and often more fun, if not enlightening.