Little Girls Wear Us Out At The National Gallery

Our afternoon plan was to visit the National Gallery--that enormous place housing the greatest holding of British art. Our lunch and the company, however, we so good, that we had precious little time left, so we breezed through centuries of art in about an hour. You haven't really experienced art, however, until you've been with the Cooper girls. For every picture, they are sure there is a story, and they want to know what it is. They literally wear their parents out, physically and mentally with their demands for information. One finds oneself in a theological quagmire explaining things like the presence of angels in passion painting, the slaughter of the innocents and various scenes--often gruesome--from the entire Old Testament. And that doesn't take into account historical paintings, the dynastic connections of various Europeans monarchs, the meaning of certain landscapes and the story behind allegories and myths, all of which must have an explanation. Don't try to fudge, either. They're smart enough to spot a fake. We managed about six rooms before, thankfully, the museum closed.