The National Gallery's present to the nation for its bicentenary is a re-opening of its Sainsbury wing and a new display of its collection. Goodness, what a birthday treat that is.
There are about a thousand pictures on display and this re-presentation of them is startling. It makes you look at familiar pictures in a different way and see pictures you've breezed by in the past as if for the first time. My own reaction as I was being taken round was roughly that of Mole in the Wind in the Willows when he was unpacking Rattie's picnic hamper: O my, O my!
