Manet

Posted on 2013/02/10 21:48:00 (February 2013).

[Sunday 3rd February 2013]
Quite a mixed bag as our weekend days often are. For the past few days I'd been craving pizza - and not just any pizza, but specifically the Naples style with the raise edges. So the main plan for the day was to go for lunch at Sartori, which does that Neapolitan style. The base and tomato sauce were good as they had been last time I went there, but again the mushrooms they use on their funghi pizza are a bit boring. I wanted to try something different this time but lots of their pizzas on the menu frustratingly have just one non-vegetarian ingredient and there's a slightly irksome note on the menu requesting that you don't ask them to modify the ingredients. So I think I'm going off this place.

The other thing I wanted to do was to go and see the Manet exhibition at the Royal Academy. I'm not really sure where I've developed a liking for Manet from, he's just sort of grown on me the last few years. Maybe to start off with it was just the fact his paintings are quite bold and eye-catching, and I liked A Bar at the Folies-Bergère initially just because it has the bottle of Bass Pale Ale in it. The more I saw his paintings though - the handful they have at the National Gallery, and Le déjeuner sur l'herbe at the Musée d'Orsay the more I liked them. There's a sort of angst, or malcontent about him - despite apparently having come from a well-to-do background, and not actually needing to paint for money. My favourite painting in the exhibition was probably a self portrait.

I planned on becoming a Friend of the Royal Academy so we wouldn't have to queue for tickets for the exhibition. After a short discussion Chie ended up joining instead though - as she was more likely to come in the daytime when I was at work. After seeing the exhibition we made use of the Friends room wherein we seemed to be the only people under 50 (and definitely the only people with a baby).

On the way back we finally got on the new Routemaster bus - the 38 - as far as Victoria. It was definitely a lot more comfortable than the original.

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