The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

The first painting we wanted to see in the National Gallery was Leonardo da Vinci’s Ginevra.
Located in a temporary gallery during a remodeling project, it’s first visible through this doorway.

Ginevra de Benci

People looking at Ginevra.

The Modern Art Building of the National Gallery

Walking through the permanent collections, I especially liked this painting: 
“The Flag is Bleeding” by Faith Ringgold.

Special Exhibit: The Land Carries Our Ancestors:
Contemporary Art by Native Americans

We enjoyed the special exhibit of work by Native American artists.

“Curated by artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Citizen of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation), this exhibition brings together works by an intergenerational group of nearly 50 living Native artists practicing across the United States. Their powerful expressions reflect the diversity of Native American individual, regional, and cultural identities. At the same time, these works share a worldview informed by thousands of years of reverence, study, and concern for the land.” (source)

“Fire Water Woman” by Rose Powhatan

Mural Installation by John Hitchcock (link)

“World Traveler” by Melissa Cody

“Edward Curtis Paparazzi: Chicken Hawks” by Jim Denomie

These art works by Native American painters seemed to me to link very closely with a book I’m reading: Endangered Eating: America's Vanishing Foods by historian Sarah Lohman, in particular the chapter titled “Manoomin: Anishinaabe Wild Rice.” The struggles of Native Americans to stay connected and preserve traditions are documented both in the art works in the National Gallery and in the descriptions of the determined way that tribes in the Great Lakes region struggle to preserve native varieties of wild rice (as opposed to the industrially cultivated and mass-marketed cultivars of this native plant). 

Key passages from Endangered Eating that seem to me to connect to the ideas of the artists:

“Tribes of the Anishinaabeg and their neighbors, the Sioux (Dakota and Lakota), are the only two contemporary Native groups that harvest wild rice. They collect it in the waters of upstate Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and in parts of Canada bordering the Great Lakes. In Minnesota alone, Native peoples consume an average of 350,000 pounds of wild rice annually, about six pounds per person per year. It is the most commonly consumed traditional food. But manoomin is a spiritual food as well, essential to mino-bimaadiziwin, the concept of living a good life. It’s the first solid food fed to Ojibwe infants and it is one of the foods present at funeral ceremonies.” (Endangered Eating p. 140)

“In 2018, the White Earth Nation passed the Rights of Manoomin to protect the remaining wild rice. The law was modeled after the work of the International Rights of Nature Tribunal: much like the legal rights given to corporations under US law, the Rights of Nature grant a natural resource guaranteed rights as a living entity. Under the Rights of Manoomin, wild rice is guaranteed the right to clean water, free from industrial pollution; the right to a ‘healthy, stable climate free from human-caused climate change impacts;’ and the right to be free from patenting and GMO cross-pollination.” (p. 166)

And a Nana by Niki de Saint Phalle

On the balcony outside the exhibit: a sculpture by artist Niki de Saint Phalle.
Her delightful characters are all called Nanas. This is “Yellow Nana.”

The National Gallery of Art is so full of masterpieces that the few hours we had were nowhere near enough to see all of the works we would like to contemplate. We saw just a few of the works from the Dutch Golden age (such as Rembrandt and Vermeer), a very brief look at the wonderful collection of impressionist works, and a quick look at more of the modern art. We’ve been there many times, never enough.

“Still Life with Peacock Pie” by Pieter Claesz

Blog post and photos by mae sander © 2023

Shared with Sami’s Monday Murals