This year, I’ve changed my mind about a lot of things.
It took just over 48 hours to change my opinion about London.
First, a little back story. I was born in England, but a long (long) way from London in the Midlands. London was a distant, snobby land that we only visited on school trips and that was only seen via parades, royal ceremony and grandstands.
So I visited London for probably a grand total of 12 hours until my thirties, visiting various museums on school or day trips. I have to admit I wasn’t impressed. The city felt cold, busy, and noisy. It wasn’t glamorous, or Romantic, it was just off-putting.
Yet when the chance came up quite spontaneously to take a short two-day trip to London with my husband, I was at first surprised how enthusiastic we were. It was a holiday/mission - to take in as much art as we could, and visit several of the world’s biggest book shops…and the world’s biggest toy shop (when you have an almost-three-year-old, this is unmissable). I think we also saw it as a test, a challenge. Could London change our minds this time?
I’m happy to say, it did.
I’m not a city person, yet I found the city inspiring even amongst the crowds and the concrete. I admired the people around me that hung around in the cafes of the National Gallery, immersing themselves in the great art that meant something unique to them, and only them. The city is full of cultures, histories, stories, and it was great to see the city through these stories. Joggers taking photos under the rain-soaked London Eye still in awe of what they’d seen every morning for years. The maintenance workers carefully sweeping up the soggy autumn leaves that spilled across the paths. The senior gentleman on the plane was moved to tears by a painting he walked past every day. It was a simple field of sheep, but he was devastated when it sold and vanished from his morning commute.
We started to see the city through these same eyes, embracing the mist and the rain - after all, with only 48 hours, we couldn’t stop and shelter and hope the weather would improve. There seems to be a “get on with it” attitude that we wouldn’t see in Malta - when it rains here, it tips it down and the country grinds to a halt.
Our first major stop was the National Gallery, a beautiful building with an interior that complements the artworks in a way that a traditional gallery should. I wandered through the halls of British landscape painters, impressionists and Romantic artists, getting as close as I safely could to experience the brush strokes of Turner, Constable, Reynolds, Monet, Van Gogh and more. Unfortunately, a whole wall of Monets had been moved for maintenance, but the other rooms certainly did not disappoint. I was also surprised by a bright, evocative landscape by John Russell, an Australian Impressionist that I’d never heard of.
Each room was exceptionally laid out, gathering together works based on a similar theme or style, but also by region, so you could compare different British portrait and landscape painters or compare the works of the Impressionists with their contemporaries. Other highlights for me included George Stubb’s grand “Whistlejacket” a giant of a horse portrait that exudes power, luxury and glows with beautiful golden hues.
I squeezed in a brief sketching session, drawn to the dark, sombre tones of “Cenotaph to the Memory of Joshua Reynolds” - one brilliant landscape painter, commemorating the death and life of another. The detail, texture and layers in this painting surprised me, and I found a new admiration for the work of Constable, so much more textured and dynamic than how it is in print or books.
Our journey through London may have been short and touched only the smallest corner of this vast metropolis, but we covered many many miles of Victorian streets, past Gothic spires, iconic landmarks, gaudy black and gold gates and of course, traversed probably even more miles within the interior of the city’s stunningly rich bookshops. Whole shelves - no, not shelves, walls - dedicated to singular topics like trees, gardens, flowers, landscape writing, and of course rooms dedicated to all artists, theories, monographs and everything in between. My husband and I’d taste in books may differ widely, but in this paper landscape, we were in a shared heaven.
And though my husband was more captivated by the Gothic vaults of Victoria Street station than I could ever understand, we found shared joy in the quiet, moody, misty morning that followed.
It was everything that UK weather is famous for. A drizzle that wasn’t quite rain, that you weren’t sure you needed a hood or umbrella for, but it was definitely damp. It was grey, and the fog hung like cigar clouds over the cigar-shaped skyscrapers of The City - London's financial district. Big Ben and the sharp multitude of spires that outlined Westminster were faded by the mist, and our walk along the bridge towards the north side of the river cut under the magnificent London eye and past these grand, iconic landmarks. We were typical tourists, just for a little while.
Then we turned onto St James’ Park, a beautiful walk surrounded by grassy verges, drooping willows, massive thick oak trees, fountains, geese, pelicans and dozens of squirrels darting around to collect the fallen acorns before the winter season. I wished to run through the carpet of golden leaves to hear them rustle and crunch, but they were sodden with the rain that seemed to hang in the air rather than fall from the clouds. It was beautiful, serene. A few joggers passed us, unphased by the wet weather. There were 90s style striped deck chairs stacked optimistically in the grass, and I wondered how glorious it would be to sunbathe here on one of those rare, warm summer days.
St James’ Park is a place I imagine is beautiful in any weather. Right in the midst of all of the hubbub of taxis, buses and traffic lights (there seems to be a lot of them!), surrounded by Neoclassical and Gothic and Brutalist buildings, the oaks and willows have grown into their own city, a little fortress where the sounds of the city fade away, and one can forget they are in the middle of the metropolis.
Our 48 hour adventure helped me to realise that I don’t want the country idyll, the distant escape, but I want the city to embrace its nature, like the fox that trotted across the road in front of our apartment, as familiar with the streets as one of the taxi drivers. If London can do it, surely any city can?