National Gallery Free Guide

Sometimes you find a place so genuinely special that you recall visiting there with great fondness. The National Gallery is one such. It is an island of calm that keeps itself afloat amidst the chaotic sea of London traffic.

The gallery is centrally located at Trafalgar Square overlooking the majestic Nelson’s Column. This places it within a stone’s throw of several attractions, including Big Ben, Westminster, Downing Street, Horse Guards, St. James's Park, Hyde Park, and Buckingham Palace. Its location at the beating heart of London practically leaves you with no excuse not to visit and visit, you must! Your eyes will feast on a sumptuous parade of spectacular paintings that is famed for its beauty and breadth!

The sprawling rooms of the gallery are arranged thematically as well as chronologically. To begin a chronological journey start your itinerary from the Sainsbury's wing that features some of the oldest works in the collection and can be dated to the Early Renaissance. Transitioning through the long corridor will bring you to the western entrance of the main building which is the epicentre of the collection. You are now surrounded by Titians and Raphaels and a collection of gloriously beautiful High Renaissance works. Room after room from now on - feast your eyes on a captivating array of Renaissance paintings. As you walk from Italy via Spain and France you would have navigated four hundred years of European art from these regions. Your penultimate stop is home ground - paintings of English greats such as JMW Turner and Gainsborough which makes the superb collection of Impressionist works your final stop. Walking through the doors and into the London traffic brings you back from 19th-century France but you can continue your visit virtually through the app and enjoy numerous paíwwwwwwaa as Perhaps you could favourite them and make a wish list and ask the app to suggest the itinerary for your next visit. To bring yourself back from 19th-century France pinch yourself now or look out the door and, the familiar hustle and bustle of Trafalgar Square with black cabs and red London buses would feel reassuring!

If you are here for a pit stop or to take shelter during a spell of rain, follow the App’s fast-paced 1-hour Tour. We begin our trip from the heart of the Renaissance in Room 9 where we visit wonderful paintings of Titian, Raphael and Michelangelo. We then make our way to the Dutch masters and the Spanish treasures. We revel in the Caravaggist paintings before taking in the glory of the French Rococo. We next embark on the Grand Manner of English Romanticism and our final stop is at the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works from across Europe. Here, we end our momentous journey by visiting the sublime works of Van Gogh which are the crowning jewels of the gallery.

If you have more time in hand or a whole rainy day ahead make it one for the free museums and galleries of London. With this app you can

* Enjoy room-to-room navigation
* Plan your itinerary
* Read insightful descriptions with amazing trivia

The gallery proudly hosts Dutch masters such as Rembrandt, Van Dyck, French greats such as Claude and Poussin, Spanish masters such as Velazquez and Goya and British greats such as JMW Turner, Gainsborough and John Constable and you can learn all about these artists and their works. You can go from Titian to Da Vinci, Van Gogh to Velazquez, and Mantegna to Monet within seconds and awaken hundreds of these beautiful works with your Midas touch!

With close to 500 paintings, 180 different artists and 70 galleries to explore, there is no better way or time to see the National Gallery. We hope you enjoy the app. Don’t forget your earphones because the buddy needs your earbuds!