Dulwich Picture Gallery

• Britain had fine weather last weekend, so I went out on 30 and 31 May in a row. On Saturday, I visited Dulwich Picture Gallery; since I came to London, I had found pleasure in a literary walk. As a result, about one month ago I asked my father to send some books about literary walking in London. In these days, I had been reading a book about Soseki Natsume's footsteps in London; and I've learned that he has been to the gallery. First of all, he liked the site Dulwich very much, and wrote his impression in his diary:"when you come to this area, you would see comfortable elegance even in Britain"(此辺ニ至レバサスガノ英国モ風流閑雅ノ趣ナキニアラズ).
• Furthermore, what interested me was the fact that this gallery was the oldest public museum in Britain; it was opened in 1811, which is earlier than National Gallery by 13 years. Learning about the gallery in this way, I felt like going there very much. First of all, I took a bus to Lewisham station, and then got on a P4 bus to Dulwich. There was a stop under the same name right in front of the building. It took about 20 minutes, as far as I remember. When I got off the bus, I could easily understand what Soseki felt there. Of course, what I saw there was not exactly the same as what he had enjoyed, but still I did like the area very much. At the entrance, I showed my student ID, because the admission was free for students. If I were not, I must have paid 10 pounds. The gallery itself was not so big, 30-40 minutes would be enough for general visitors. The most famous picture is Rembrandt's "Young Girl Leaning in a Window-sill"(the left below). When I saw it for the first time, I felt awed by the very artistic style. I think Rembrandt's creative power overwhelmed me.
• Since I wanted to see the same pictures as those Soseki did, I transferred the images to my mobile phone, and tried to find their originals in the gallery by referring to them. Soseki mentions Joshua Reynolds's "Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse"(the right below) and commented on it: "the eighteenth-century world is very classical as a whole. ...but the theme of this portrait is not at all. Reynolds would take an intermediate position between the classical and modern to harmonize both the present figure Mrs Siddons and the classical character the Tragic Muse, and created such a classical work as meets the taste of his time"(十八世紀は一面にクラシカルな世である。...所が今言ふ肖像画は決してクラシカルな題目ではない。レノルズは此中間に立って巧みに此の二者を調和して彼の画を時勢に応じる程のクラシカルなものにしたのである。)
• I've learned another interesting episode concerning this gallery; Giles Gilbert Scott has got the idea for the design of telephone booth by seeing the decoration on the mausoleum at the backside entrance of this gallery. I could take the pictures of both, and now I think they are indeed comparable.