Day 0009

I went to the Frick Collection for the first time today. It was a surprisingly emotional experience for me, and I now understand how someone could suffer from Stendhal syndrome and be completely overwhelmed by works of art.

I hadn't expected the collection to be of such high quality nor so beautifully presented. I loved how it wasn't arranged by era, so that a Turner shines out just a few paintings down from a moody Rembrandt.

I was particularly moved to see such a large holding of Gainsboroughs and a Constable, as these two artists have personal significance for me since we all grew up in the same part of rural Suffolk. It felt strange to be together with them so far from home in a mansion off Fifth avenue. Constable would be pleased to be a displayed just a room away from Ruisdeal, a master of landscape from whom he learned a lot.

There was a fantastic exhibition of Andrea del Sarto's drawings. As he is known as Andrea 'senza errori', or Andrea the faultless, there is an awful lot for a novice draughtsman to learn from him. Most of the drawings were in red chalk and I was able to spend an hour or so working in front of his Study of a head of a young woman, from the Uffizi.

My face, my moon, my everybody's moon,
Which everybody looks on and calls his

Robert Browning, Andrea del Sarto. Audio version on youtube.