JUNE 2, 2012 Wow, two weeks went by quickly. This is our last day to tour DC. We decided to start with the Library of Congress. It’s housed in three buildings, but the one to see is the original – the Thomas Jefferson Building across from the Capitol. It was built in 1897 in ornate Italian Renaissance style, much better looking on the inside than out, in my opinion.
The interior has elaborately decorated vaulting, sculptures, paintings, etc. This truly is one of the most opulent buildings in DC.
A tour was beginning just as we got inside, so we tagged along. Our guide was knowledgeable and passionate and made the things we were seeing come alive. She is a volunteer docent whose specialty was health care publications, working primarily out of the NIH in Bethesda. Gosh. Our dining room ceiling didn’t come out quite like that.
We weren’t allowed into the Main Reading Room, and the vantage point we had from a balcony didn’t permit pictures, so you’ll just have to go see for yourself. The building did house a number of oddball exhibits including a gallery devoted to Bob Hope and another to the Gershwins. If you’re interested in either, this is the place to be, but otherwise not a must-see.
One of the real must-sees is the Thomas Jefferson Library. When the British burned the Congressional Library in 1814, his was the largest personal collection of books in the country. To re-establish the Congressional Library, he sold his to Congress for $23,950 in 1815. Here, they recreated his original library and it is stocked with a combination of originals and replicas of the volumes that were in it when he sold it to the country. The replicas are of those books destroyed in a fire in 1851. It was very cool to see what stimulated him back then.
By the time we were done touring, we were ready for a late lunch. Our guide was happy to recommend a couple of places nearby, and we settled on “We, The Pizza.” OK, corny, but the pizza was really good. At least I managed to remember to take a pic before devouring all of it.
After that, we were not in the mood for anything too intellectual, so where better to head than the National Postal Museum! On the way there, we passed by the Supreme Court, looking quite lovely in the bright sunshine.
The Postal Museum is housed in the basement of the Old City Post Office, built in 1914. It didn’t rate a photo, but the museum was quite interesting.
The exhibitions portrayed the history of the mail service including moving the mail, stamps, the art of cards & letters, and more.
One of the more interesting oddities for me was the description of how they used to save weight on overseas mail during WWII by microfilming the mail, then printing it out at the other end. I’d never heard that before.
We still had a bit of time left before things closed down for the day, so we hotfooted it over to the American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery. These had some excellent works. You could get lost gazing into the depths of Bierstadt’s painting of “Among The Sierra Nevada,” (1868) often referred to as “The Great Picture.” You’re only a little deflated when you learn he painted it in Rome, and the composition was a complete fictional rendering of what he thought the great mountains of the West “should” look like.
Another favorite was Thomas Hart Benson’s mural, “Achelous & Hercules,” (1947), supposedly a parable for the taming of the Mississippi by the Army Corps of Engineers. Achelous is the bull, and Hercules is the guy grabbing the horns. Missisip and the COE? Okayyyyy.
We also enjoyed the monumental canvasses by Thomas Moran of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (1872-R, 1892-L), as we saw that on one of our RV trips. Didn’t look quite like that, as I remember.
Loni, I think, preferred the presidential portraits, which didn’t inspire me to take any shots. She was also very taken with the work of George Catlin who did portraits of Indians in a style that reminds her of Modigliani. Couldn’t shoot any shots in there, but here’s one from the web.
We ran out of time, closed the joint, and caught the metro back to our station. D.C. is trying to be quite friendly to non-car transportation, including bicycles. At many metro stations they have these bike repair stands that anyone can use for emergency repairs. Neat.
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