MAY 5, THURSDAY

VERMEER, A YOUNG WOMAN STANDING AT A VIRGINAL

On Thursday I went at mid morning to the National Gallery and then ate lunch at the Trafalgar Square Saravanaa Bhavan, my third meal with them, but at a different restaurant each time. This time I had the North Indian thali which included a soup starter and three puries along with rice. It was delicious, but because this was downtown in the high cost area it cost 20 pounds instead of 12 at Ilford.

But the big event of the day was going to the National Gallery where I think I will go again today. I am searching for the a certain kind of London, which I haven’t found yet and am guessing that I won’t find. I am looking for Paris in London, which I know is as foolish as looking for Asheville in London. I have found immigrant London in the two Indian sections that I have visited, the old stately London with pasted on store fronts selling saries and Indian sweets. It was like being back in India and familiar.

Yesterday I had the feeling of being in a different London within canyons of glassed in financial buildings, a very modern London dotted with a reminder of the past at London Bridge or the Tower of London or Parliament or Buckingham Palace, now tourist attractions. I am reminded of my brother Ted once saying that you didn’t have to go to Europe, you could go to Las Vegas and see the Eiffel Tower and other imitation European tourist sites, a little like Disneyland. I’ve been to Disneyland but never Las Vegas. And now I’m in London. These aren’t fake tourist sites, these are the real thing, but it still feels a little like Disneyland.

So I will try again to find a Parisian London with no hope at all that I will find it.

I took some photographs of the fountains of Trafalgar Square and then went into the huge ornate National Gallery. I skipped the Raphael exhibit that costs 24 pounds and, instead, got lost in the Renaissance section and did find some Vermeer and Rembrandt paintings, which I wanted to see and many others. I walked until my back was tired and I needed to rest, not nearly long enough to see very much of the museum, and that is why I want to go back.

But I had a very odd sensation after seeing the first Vermeer, “A Young Woman standing at a Virginal, about 1670-2”. The odd sensation was that I had seen quality copies of this painting by Vermeer and many others again and again and been touched by them. But it was very odd, almost shocking, to see that there was an original, actual painting on the wall in the National Gallery.

Almost daily I put on the paintings of the Louvre on my large iPad and see the paintings in an extended, continuous slide show. I look up from time to time and they please me. I have become familiar with a great number of them. If I want I can look at all of Vermeer’s paintings in a slide show that I made for myself from photographs on the web.

My question is whether there is a radical difference between seeing the actual painting of the young woman standing at a virginal and seeing a copy. It can be argued that the digital copy is of lower quality than the original, and when done with my iPhone it is. But I know that it is possible to make digital printed copies that look exactly like the original. I know that many artists are selling printed copies of their paintings, at a lower price, and that these copies look exactly like the original. So I don’t think it is the quality of the reproduction that sets the two apart. It must be something else.

Or course, it is the feeling that this is the original thing. This is what Vermeer sat in front of and painted. Since there is only one copy it is priceless while the copies can be sold for $10.

But consider the downside of only being satisfied by seeing the original when the copy looks just the same and can touch me in just the same way through subject, composition, style and all the things that make a painting touch me.

I have to come all the way to London to see this painting, and while I may stand in front of it for ten minutes if I want, I will then move on and not see it again unless I come back to London and look at it for another ten minutes. And who can see the painting, only those wealthy enough to make the trip? This puts Vermeer beyond the the chance to see him for most people.

But not only that. This is also a much less comfortable way of seeing Vermeer. At home I can sit comfortably and without being in a crowd and drink a cup of coffee or if I want to be arty can sip a glass of wine. And I can look at it again and again, day after day. And because the digital version looks just the same as the original I can get the same pleasure, even more pleasure, since I am comfortable, day after day.

But in the National Gallery I don’t only see Vermeer I see hundreds of paintings, all of them fantastic at one time. It is worth the trip. I can’t do that at home.

But yes I can. I’ve bought a device called a Meural frame which lets me visit museums around the world and to see hundreds of different paintings. I am not confined to one museum. I can look at only Vermeer or only Rembrandt and mount my own show. The Raphael exhibit, that costs 24 pounds at the National Gallery, is a once in a lifetime chance to see all of these Raphael paintings at one time. I have the same chance on my Meural to stage a similar private show, but not only of Raphael, but also Vermeer and Rembrandt and Picasso. And just as in my lifetime the printed versions of paintings in books went from blurry to precise, the same thing is happening with digital versions so that the upcoming very high resolution TV’s will enhance the digital versions of paintings more and more.

And this led me to another discovery. If I buy a very high quality print, undectable as being different from the original, and put it in a frame on the wall I will sometimes look at it and sometimes not. I will become used to it and soon not notice it. But this is not true with digital slide shows in a similar frame on the wall that changes the painting every 15 minutes, or hour or day. In this case the change will almost always draw my attention. I will really see each painting almost to the extent that if I want to do something else I will have to turn the painting show off because it demands my attention, just as I turn off the TV.