National Gallery

When the bells of St Martin-in-the-Fields peal each morning at 10am, the doors promptly open on one of the world’s greatest artistic fireworks shows—each famous picture follows an equally famous picture. Few museums can compete with the strongest, widest collection of Western European paintings in the world—one of every important style is on display, and it’s almost always the best in that genre. There are 2,300 works, which is plenty to divert you for as long as you can manage, although most visitors just wander around without getting properly close to the brushwork. Be different.

FINDING WORKS: This stupendous and palatial institution, founded in 1824, is marred by opaque presentation; it’s very difficult to find the works you want to see. The map (£2) is a poor value that omits many masterpieces. Directional signs lack room numbers, and the museum is so popular (nearly six million people most years) that staff is mostly concerned with controlling visitors, not edifying them. It’s almost like they want you to wander confused and unenriched, which is why I strongly suggest preparing for your visit by searching for works on its website: www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/search-the-collection. If it’s on display, the location will appear under Key Facts. The museum offers free Wi-Fi, but it may not work, and it doesn’t offer a place for you to recharge your phone after you’ve done all that work.

LEARNING ABOUT WORKS: Posted signs are awfully straitlaced. You can glean a little more information if you download the Smartify app (free; bring earbuds) and point your phone at works you want to learn more about. The website has some itinerary (“trail”) suggestions, and the short spotlight videos on its YouTube channel (nationalgallerylondon) can help you appreciate a little of what you’ll be seeing, but your visit would be best illuminated by some expert input. Check the info desk or the website’s Events section for free perks such as the 10-Minute Talks about a single work (Mon–Fri 4pm); 45-minute Lunchtime Talks (1pm) about a specific work or artist; storytelling for kids; or the few hour-long tours (check the schedule online). Permanent displays are supplemented by temporary exhibitions, one free and one paid (£8–£18, and having a ticket can speed you past the main entry queue). The Gallery schedules most family activities for Sundays. The two restaurants are top-quality but overpriced, and besides, the view from the restaurant at the National Portrait Gallery next door (see below) is better. Don’t miss the superlative gift shops, which will print you a color-matched custom copy of any of the 1,200 works or even mail a framed version home.

Galleries imperceptibly surge through time in a clockwise arrangement. The best course is to start in the Sainsbury Wing (the first wing upon your entrance from Pall Mall East), which will order viewings more or less chronologically.

Note: Recent renovations for the Gallery’s 200th anniversary may have shifted the location of some works from what is listed below. To pinpoint current gallery numbers, search for works on the website before coming.

Top Don't-Miss Exhibits at London's National Gallery

•Piero della Francesca, one of the most sought-after Renaissance painters, is represented by The Baptism of Christ (1450s, room 61 in the Sainsbury Wing). With its then-advanced use of light and foreshortening, its faces verge on bemusement, and the dove, representing the Holy Spirit, seems to fly straight at viewers.

•After Sandro Botticelli fell under the spell of the hardline reformer Savonarola, he burned many of his finest paintings in the Bonfire of the Vanities and changed to an inferior style, so his best works are rare. Venus and Mars (1485, room 58 in the Sainsbury Wing), depicting the lovers reclining, is one of them.

•Michelangelo’s The Entombment (ca. 1500, room 61) is unfinished but powerful. The feminine figure in the red gown is now thought to be St John, but it’s hard to know for sure, since the artist favored strong masculine traits.

•King Henry VIII sent his trusted portrait painter, Hans Holbein the Younger, to Brussels to capture an honest likeness of 16-year-old Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan (1538, room 12), so he could decide if she was pretty enough to marry. She declined his proposal, and as a happy consequence, survived to 1590.

•Nearby, Holbein’s The Ambassadors (1533, room 4) is full of symbolic riddles that refer to the French guy on the left, and famous for a stretched image of a skull that can only be viewed in proper perspective from the side. Get close; the fine brushwork extends even to the feathers on the shoes.

•Kids love Quinten Massys’ grotesque, possibly satiric An Old Woman (The Ugly Duchess; 1513, room 46). It was recently restored, revealing the green glaze background and fine scratches in the paint of the veil that play with the light. Many artists have trouble rendering hands, but these are perfect.

•Among other works, Rembrandt van Rijn shows two self-portraits. One at age 34 (1637, room 22) is pridefully detailed to declare ego—he even gives himself a single name like the Renaissance masters. By age 63 (across the same room), he’s in simple clothes and broadly dolloping paint with a palette knife. The pair makes for a universal story of preening youth giving way to confident old age.

•Edouard Manet’s The Execution of Maximilian (1867–68, room 44) was sliced into five sections after the artist’s death, but Edgar Degas re-assembled what he could find; the missing patches lend the firing-squad scene further tension.

•J. M. W. Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire (1839, room 34) depicts a proud sailed battleship being towed for scrapping by a filthy steam-engine boat. As echoed by Q in Skyfall as he met James Bond in front of it, it’s a national symbol for the decline of the Empire’s glory days and the rise of industrialism. A few paintings over, George Stubbs’ cryptic, life-size portrait of rearing stallion Whistlejacket stops everyone in their tracks; it was painted in 1762 for its proud owner.

•  William Hogarth’s Marriage à la Mode (1743, room 35) is a lurid soap opera of marriage, infidelity, greed, disease, and poisoning told in six satirical paintings.

•The Gallery is rich in Peter Paul Rubens, with some 25 works attributed to him. His Samson and Delilah (1609–10, room 18) is known for Samson’s muscular back and Delilah’s crimson robe.

There’s much more: George Seurat’s almost-pointillist Bathers at Asnières (1884, room 43); Monet’s The Water-Lily Pond (1899, room 41); Van Gogh’s Sunflowers (1888, room 43); the Pollaiuolo brothers’ The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian (1475, room 59); Jan van Eyck’s instantly recognizable The Arnolfini Portrait (Sainsbury Wing, room 63), a mysterious but fabulously skillful depiction of light that dates to 1434 and looks years ahead of its time. Brueghels (room 26; bring your reading glasses to see the crazy details). Cézannes. Uccellos. There’s so much good stuff here that you may want to go twice during your visit. The Gallery is centrally located, so you can.

Details

• Address: Trafalgar Square, WC2
• Phone: [phone]
• Website: http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk
• Hours: Mon–Thurs and Sat–Sun 10am–6pm; Fri 10am–9pm; visitors not permitted to carry liquids
• Prices: Free admission
• Transportation: Tube: Charing Cross or Leicester Square