In which I view wonderful art, eat a sublime meal, and break a toe(not in that order)

I broke the toe in the middle of the night, but I'll save that story (and a picture of one scary looking digit) for the end of this entry.  If you read to the point of that pic, don't blame me for what you see.

After nearly 12 hours of sleep, I awoke feeling considerably better than I had the past few days.  It's amazing how much all that rack time can help when you haven't slept more than four hours a night for the previous three nights.  I'm now quite tired again, but I hope to awaken fully refreshed after another long slumber.

After a rather large breakfast at a nearby diner

Click an image for a larger version. Do that with the toe pic, and you can't blame me.

A long and interesting cab ride later--at least one London cabbie thinks Trump is only saying what other people are thinking, alas--I arrived at the lovely Leighton House.  Though I once again was fortunate enough to see his unfinished Clytie, my reason for visiting this time was the traveling exhibition of well more than a hundred works of Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema.

The exhibition prohibited photography, so I have no images to share.  I can tell you only that it was an honor and a treat to be able to see paintings that spanned the time from when he was about sixteen, to the height of his powers, to one he did at 76 in the last year of his life, to an unfinished piece.  For my taste, he did much of his best work when he was more than sixty years old, a sign I find hopeful.

His two daughters, Laurence and Anna, and his second wife (their mother), Laura, were also all painters, and a few of their pieces were on display.  All were lovely paintings, which makes it sad that so little of their art remains.  Yet again, history neglects talented women when it should not.

The Leighton House's garden, which sits behind the building, was a lovely and cool place to sit and ponder the art I'd just seen.  It also seemed like a fine place to capture a shot of an LYG shirt visiting the UK (albeit on my body).

Dinner took me for the third time to the tiny but wonderful restaurant, The Araki.  The sushi there is the best I have ever had the privilege to taste.  They use astonishingly great ingredients, including, in this dish, summer truffles mixed with otoro, the most prized part of the belly of the blue fin tuna.

After a rest, some reading, some email, and general messing about, a bit of a walk took me for a late dessert to La Gelateria, home to some of the best gelato I've ever tasted (and I've eaten a great deal of gelato).

Oh, yeah:  the toe.  In the middle of the night, after awakening as usual at the end of an eighty-minute sleep cycle, I meant to step around the end of the bed to see the clock, which was turned the wrong way for me to see it from in the bed.  Instead, I hit my toe hard against a little luggage bench at the foot of the bed, in the process breaking the toe.

Am I sure I broke it?

Pretty sure.

I'm not going to let it slow me down at all; though, so as you'll have noted, I walked on it all day, and I'll do the same tomorrow.

The toe can either toughen up or get the hell off my foot.

I'm hoping for the first option.

Go to the Leighton House if you can

Today, for no particular reason other than my affection for the work of Lord Frederic Leighton, I visited the Leighton House Museum.  I had done no research and had no expectations of anything more than a tour of the house.

Oh, what a lucky man I am!  Upon arrival, I learned that the museum was hosting a show, which ends April 2, called "Flaming June: The Making of an Icon."  The title of the show betrays its main focus, the painting Flaming June, which is arguably Leighton's most famous work.  What the title does not make clear is that as part of assembling this show, the museum not only gathered tons of his sketches for this piece, it also assembled for the first time since 1895 all five extant paintings that Leighton planned to submit for the 1895 summer exposition!  (I say "planned" because at the last moment he pulled one painting and substituted another, and no one knows where the substitution currently is.)

This means that the last time these five paintings hung together was in his studio on his April open house day prior to the exposition!  I lucked into the first chance to see these pieces together since 1895.  At the exposition, they were scattered in different areas.  Only in his studio in 1895 and now in the house museum have they hung together.

I cannot show you photos of the paintings, because the house rules forbid photography, but I can list them for you here in the order in which they were hanging, from left to right:

• Candida
• Lachrymae
• The Maid with the Golden Hair
• 'Twixt Hope and Fear
• Flaming June

All five are technically brilliant, examples of the painter at the height of his talents--though working with severe angina the entire time he was painting them.  Candida and 'Twixt Hope and Fear did not, however, touch my heart the way the other three did.  Lachrymae broke my heart with its sorrow.  I fell instantly in love with the utter and complete focus of the reading Maid with the Golden Hair.  As for Flaming June, well, it deserves all of its accolades, a stunningly romantic vision of a woman exhausted and embracing slumber.  

In addition to the paintings themselves and the many sketches for aspects of Flaming June, the museum also managed to snag the unfinished Clytie, which is astonishing in person, and Whispers, which also deserves its fame.  

The house itself is another treat, a sumptuous, art-filled treasure trove.  

I could go on and on, but I am quite drained by today's experiences, of which this was the primary and most moving.  I was quite undone by the emotions Leighton's paintings aroused in me.

If you live in London or will be visiting before this exhibition closes, I cannot recommend it too highly.  I genuinely feel privileged to have seen it.