Jueves 10 de febrero
Running through Retiro -- I love listening to the accordion when I run past the St. Florida gate. Met up with Isabel (and her very cultured tour guests) at 12 at the Goya gate of the Prado. First we went to the the Adán y Eva by Durer -- the same one I'd just written an essay about yesterday for Mujeres en artes! Isabel talked about how Durer intended to display the beauty of the naked human body. Only their natural beauty could justify the fact that these figures were unclothed. Durer's Adam resembles Apollo while Eve resembles Venus. We also took time to study how the paintings had been restored. The Eve painting was completed on 3 wooden panels while Adam has 4. For this reason, Adam was in much worse shape than Eve a few years ago (all the cracks between the panels caused paint to chip). The museum undertook a very intensive restoration effort to get the paintings back into tip-top shape.
Next we went into a room of 15th century Spanish paintings. Isabel is an *excellent* tour guide -- I learned so much from her even though I definitely didn't catch everything she said (guided tour was in Spanish). She talked about how Spain's "Renaissance" period is very short -- especially in comparison to Italy's. Spain has a lot of great works from the Medieval Period and several grand masters in the Baroque period, so the Spanish Renaissance period was a bit overshadowed and passed rather quickly. We saw the influence of the 15th century Flemish artists (Van Eyck, Van der Weyden) in the detailed minutia (eg. words of book appear to be magnified -- they're larger under the eyeglasses) and the depiction of the monsters and demons of hell (think Den Bosch). The Spanish Renaissance painters try to incorporate some architectural perspective, but it's a little off -- the building arches look a little bent and rubbery. There were some fabulous depictions of Santiago (beheaded, being loaded into a boat, I think) and various saints. One guy's face had been painted with such detail, the stubble on his face actually looked as if it'd be rough to touch. I think it was by Bartolomé Bermejo. Another painting Isabel said was "politically incorrect" depicted a saint standing on a screaming Moor. Yikes. Each painting was filled with so much detail -- you could spend so much time looking at each one!
After Isabel took me to the famous Cerveceria Cervantes, just a few blocks from the Prado. It's also close to the government buildings so it's frequented by politicians too. We had mussels and olives with our cañas and then serrano ham sandwiches with tomato. There are all sorts of drawings and ceramics on the walls, and the place was filled with the afternoon sunlight.
After we stopped by a beautiful little exposición of 20th century Spanish sculpture. I liked the idea of the sculptures being "drawings in the air". Interesting little aerodynamic sculpture by Dalí (woman looked like a dolphin fin haha). There was a really cool piece by Picasso ("Femme Debout") in which there were hands/arms made of metal, but no legs. Instead, the shadow of the hands projected onto the surface beneath the sculpture -- so the feet were "created" by the shadow. The Pablo Gargalio "Jeune fille a la frange" beautiful and delicate too. There were some cool 3D engravings of views of the Buen Retiro (actually the view from the artist's house). Isabel knows something about all the artists and how they influence one another. Many of the Spanish artists put references to Spanish culture in their work (for ex. the bottle of tio pepe on the slanted table).
Next we went to a famous "pastelería-cafetería" called La Mallorquina right in the Puerta del Sol. Had a quick coffee and little square cream pastry before dashing off to Plaza San Martín for 2:30 tour of the Jardines Impresionistas at Caja Madrid.
Fantastic exhibit!! It's an extension of the one in the Thyssen right now. First floor had mostly French artists: Pissarro's painting of Henri IV statue in Paris (beautiful subdued colors of autumn). There were paintings of exotic flowers -- chrysanthemums and dhalias (having exotic flowers in your garden was a sign/symbol of modernity and culture). Isabel knew so much about the back stories of each painting too. For example, one painting called "undergrowth" by Vincent Van Gogh depicted the undergrowth of the foresty gardens of the mental hospital where he was interned. He wrote in his letters to Theo that the undergrowth reminded him of the sickness in his mind and how persistently it grew back. Another good back story: one of the artists painted his three daughters and an empty chair on the far right. Isabel informed us that the painter's wife had died giving birth to the youngest daughter -- the3 girls and the chair thus represented the entire family, the mother/wife still very present in their lives.
I loved the Sorolla paintings, once again. Many of the painters kept gardens of their own, and they felt strong pride in their work as gardeners. Sorolla painted his garden (I recognized it!) as well as the garden chair he would sit in. Monet said the work he was most proud of was his garden. We saw a great painting of the pond in his garden -- horizontal lines of the lily pads contrasted the vertical lines of the willow tree -- definitely towards the end of his career as his eyesight deteriorated. Isabel said Monet painted this, in part, by smelling the garden -- he knew the location of the plants by the scents he experienced while painting. What an interesting way to paint! So resourceful of Monet haha
Gustav Klimt was represented by 3 paintings as well. Interestingly, they looked flat when looked at head on, but from the 2nd floor, looking down at the paintings, they had profound depth! I actually preferred these garden paintings of his (especially La Casa del guardabosques) to those gold figures he painted so often later on. Saw a couple of Renoir paintings. Renoir also had a garden, and he painted one portrait of his gardener (who was the same age as the artist) and to him, it was somewhat of a self-portrait. I think Renoir and Cezanne were probably my two favorite painters here...
The exhibition highlighted three contrasting dimensions in the gardens represented in these paintings: the city garden vs. country garden, the public garden (eg. Luxembourg gardens of Paris) vs. the private gardens (there were several of girls reading, sewing, siestaing in the shade -- the shade and shadow always seems to indicate privacy), and finally thr decorative garden vs. the productive garden. Pissarro especially liked painting the productive gardens -- reflects his own collectivist political beliefs too and his faith in a agricultural workers' revolution.
There were some Americans and Scandinavians upstairs too. Mary Cassat's "Summer" painting of the 2 girls in the boat. The Americans tended to paint on on much bigger canvases than the Europeans -- so typical haha. One Scandinavian painted a garden covered in snow -- didn't look like a garden but I guess it was one! Often there were portraits of people in a garden-- sometimes artists gazing out into the garden, perhaps thinking about what aspect of the garden to paint? There was an odd one of a young mother pushing her daughter in a baby pram. She was looking at her daughter while the daughter looked at a doll. Behind them was a ball, discarded. Apparently this artist believed strongly in stages and progression of play or something. So the fact that the daughter had abandoned the ball and moved on to playing with the doll was symbolic of reaching some developmental milestone. Another way to look at the painting was to consider that the young mother depicted was pregnant with her second child -- was she choosing which child to focus her attention on? Is a picture about playing favorites with your children? Not sure...
Anyway, fabulous exhibit, and I'm so grateful to Isabel for letting me tag along! Next took metro home, finished Spanish homework, went to Spanish, talked about renting "pisos" (flats) walked home, dinner (fish in yellow sauce, potatoes, salad, pear) and news. Massive picture upload -- they're all up on facebook now!
Running through Retiro -- I love listening to the accordion when I run past the St. Florida gate. Met up with Isabel (and her very cultured tour guests) at 12 at the Goya gate of the Prado. First we went to the the Adán y Eva by Durer -- the same one I'd just written an essay about yesterday for Mujeres en artes! Isabel talked about how Durer intended to display the beauty of the naked human body. Only their natural beauty could justify the fact that these figures were unclothed. Durer's Adam resembles Apollo while Eve resembles Venus. We also took time to study how the paintings had been restored. The Eve painting was completed on 3 wooden panels while Adam has 4. For this reason, Adam was in much worse shape than Eve a few years ago (all the cracks between the panels caused paint to chip). The museum undertook a very intensive restoration effort to get the paintings back into tip-top shape.
Next we went into a room of 15th century Spanish paintings. Isabel is an *excellent* tour guide -- I learned so much from her even though I definitely didn't catch everything she said (guided tour was in Spanish). She talked about how Spain's "Renaissance" period is very short -- especially in comparison to Italy's. Spain has a lot of great works from the Medieval Period and several grand masters in the Baroque period, so the Spanish Renaissance period was a bit overshadowed and passed rather quickly. We saw the influence of the 15th century Flemish artists (Van Eyck, Van der Weyden) in the detailed minutia (eg. words of book appear to be magnified -- they're larger under the eyeglasses) and the depiction of the monsters and demons of hell (think Den Bosch). The Spanish Renaissance painters try to incorporate some architectural perspective, but it's a little off -- the building arches look a little bent and rubbery. There were some fabulous depictions of Santiago (beheaded, being loaded into a boat, I think) and various saints. One guy's face had been painted with such detail, the stubble on his face actually looked as if it'd be rough to touch. I think it was by Bartolomé Bermejo. Another painting Isabel said was "politically incorrect" depicted a saint standing on a screaming Moor. Yikes. Each painting was filled with so much detail -- you could spend so much time looking at each one!
After Isabel took me to the famous Cerveceria Cervantes, just a few blocks from the Prado. It's also close to the government buildings so it's frequented by politicians too. We had mussels and olives with our cañas and then serrano ham sandwiches with tomato. There are all sorts of drawings and ceramics on the walls, and the place was filled with the afternoon sunlight.
After we stopped by a beautiful little exposición of 20th century Spanish sculpture. I liked the idea of the sculptures being "drawings in the air". Interesting little aerodynamic sculpture by Dalí (woman looked like a dolphin fin haha). There was a really cool piece by Picasso ("Femme Debout") in which there were hands/arms made of metal, but no legs. Instead, the shadow of the hands projected onto the surface beneath the sculpture -- so the feet were "created" by the shadow. The Pablo Gargalio "Jeune fille a la frange" beautiful and delicate too. There were some cool 3D engravings of views of the Buen Retiro (actually the view from the artist's house). Isabel knows something about all the artists and how they influence one another. Many of the Spanish artists put references to Spanish culture in their work (for ex. the bottle of tio pepe on the slanted table).
Next we went to a famous "pastelería-cafetería" called La Mallorquina right in the Puerta del Sol. Had a quick coffee and little square cream pastry before dashing off to Plaza San Martín for 2:30 tour of the Jardines Impresionistas at Caja Madrid.
Fantastic exhibit!! It's an extension of the one in the Thyssen right now. First floor had mostly French artists: Pissarro's painting of Henri IV statue in Paris (beautiful subdued colors of autumn). There were paintings of exotic flowers -- chrysanthemums and dhalias (having exotic flowers in your garden was a sign/symbol of modernity and culture). Isabel knew so much about the back stories of each painting too. For example, one painting called "undergrowth" by Vincent Van Gogh depicted the undergrowth of the foresty gardens of the mental hospital where he was interned. He wrote in his letters to Theo that the undergrowth reminded him of the sickness in his mind and how persistently it grew back. Another good back story: one of the artists painted his three daughters and an empty chair on the far right. Isabel informed us that the painter's wife had died giving birth to the youngest daughter -- the3 girls and the chair thus represented the entire family, the mother/wife still very present in their lives.
I loved the Sorolla paintings, once again. Many of the painters kept gardens of their own, and they felt strong pride in their work as gardeners. Sorolla painted his garden (I recognized it!) as well as the garden chair he would sit in. Monet said the work he was most proud of was his garden. We saw a great painting of the pond in his garden -- horizontal lines of the lily pads contrasted the vertical lines of the willow tree -- definitely towards the end of his career as his eyesight deteriorated. Isabel said Monet painted this, in part, by smelling the garden -- he knew the location of the plants by the scents he experienced while painting. What an interesting way to paint! So resourceful of Monet haha
Gustav Klimt was represented by 3 paintings as well. Interestingly, they looked flat when looked at head on, but from the 2nd floor, looking down at the paintings, they had profound depth! I actually preferred these garden paintings of his (especially La Casa del guardabosques) to those gold figures he painted so often later on. Saw a couple of Renoir paintings. Renoir also had a garden, and he painted one portrait of his gardener (who was the same age as the artist) and to him, it was somewhat of a self-portrait. I think Renoir and Cezanne were probably my two favorite painters here...
The exhibition highlighted three contrasting dimensions in the gardens represented in these paintings: the city garden vs. country garden, the public garden (eg. Luxembourg gardens of Paris) vs. the private gardens (there were several of girls reading, sewing, siestaing in the shade -- the shade and shadow always seems to indicate privacy), and finally thr decorative garden vs. the productive garden. Pissarro especially liked painting the productive gardens -- reflects his own collectivist political beliefs too and his faith in a agricultural workers' revolution.
There were some Americans and Scandinavians upstairs too. Mary Cassat's "Summer" painting of the 2 girls in the boat. The Americans tended to paint on on much bigger canvases than the Europeans -- so typical haha. One Scandinavian painted a garden covered in snow -- didn't look like a garden but I guess it was one! Often there were portraits of people in a garden-- sometimes artists gazing out into the garden, perhaps thinking about what aspect of the garden to paint? There was an odd one of a young mother pushing her daughter in a baby pram. She was looking at her daughter while the daughter looked at a doll. Behind them was a ball, discarded. Apparently this artist believed strongly in stages and progression of play or something. So the fact that the daughter had abandoned the ball and moved on to playing with the doll was symbolic of reaching some developmental milestone. Another way to look at the painting was to consider that the young mother depicted was pregnant with her second child -- was she choosing which child to focus her attention on? Is a picture about playing favorites with your children? Not sure...
Anyway, fabulous exhibit, and I'm so grateful to Isabel for letting me tag along! Next took metro home, finished Spanish homework, went to Spanish, talked about renting "pisos" (flats) walked home, dinner (fish in yellow sauce, potatoes, salad, pear) and news. Massive picture upload -- they're all up on facebook now!
No comments:
Post a Comment