Was It Worth It?

Three weeks ago, Mum, Dad and I travelled 300 odd kilometres to Canberra, queued for two hours in the hot sun, then travelled back to Sydney. Why? To see the Masterpieces from Paris at the National Gallery.

Starry Night over the Rhone, Vincent Van Gogh

Was it worth it? Eight hours of travelling and two hours of queuing to spend 1½ hours milling around in a crowded room, weaving around bodies to read the commentary and trying to contemplate pictures from a distance with heads popping into view? And then, emerging from the exhibition rooms, coming face-to-face with checkout queues that spanned the length of the souvenir shop forming an almost impenetrable barrier to the middle of store?

I'm not sure. Especially since I discovered I could view the same paintings and read the same information from the comfort of home through the National Gallery of Australia's Web site.

Entry to the Port of Marseille, Paul Signac

However, although I can lose myself in the depths of a painting like Van Gogh's Starry Night over the Rhone through the Web, there were works using techniques such as pointillism (“the original pixelation”) that could only be appreciated from a distance.

And even though the queue snaked from the exhibition rooms, out the entrance of the National Gallery, over the footbridge and across the forecourt of the High Court to the Portrait Gallery, the people in line seemed in good humour—chatting to others, sharing umbrellas with strangers (so glad it didn't rain as forecasted), offering to buy refreshments for you from the Portrait Gallery or holding your place while you sought relief in the cool of the Portrait Gallery or in the shade of a tree.

So, maybe it wasn't so bad after all? It was a long day; we were unable to book accommodation so we didn't get home until around midnight. But I had a leisurely day with my parents, saw artworks that I'll never see ‘in the flesh’ again unless I go to Paris, enjoyed the company and idle chat of fellow ‘in-liners’ and finished off sampling new dishes and sipping a cool coconut drink in a little Asian restaurant in Kingston.