Lilac bloom at the Capitol

Well to be honest, more at the Botanic Garden beside the Capitol, but still, I wanted to Blip something that reflected both my sightseeing in Washington today and the Colour Challenge colour which was lilac.

Now lilac is one of those colours really difficult to define, because the actual lilac flowers are more pinkish on the inside and more purplish on the outside, but the colour lilac is usually used for a very light purple going towards blue.

I first went to the National Gallery of Art (what a wonderful museum building and what an amazing collection, for example I've never seen so many Dutch masters together outside of the Netherlands). Followed a great guided tour by a wonderful docent about the 18th and 19th century French collection (again the amount of Impressionist pictures was astounding) and strolled through the Dutch, Flemish, Spanish and Italian masters but lilac doesn't seem to have been a colour much in use. Then walked towards the Capitol and just when I was actually thinking of returning to the hotel I remembered that there is a Botanic Garden here as well. Of course right now there is not as much in bloom as there would be in summer but there were plenty of lilac coloured flowers there, in particular these ones in the very foreground. They're called Chrysanthemum Cambodian Queen and though they are usually called pink, I beg to differ and call these lilac in any case!