Culture fix

Spas and meditation not that indispensable

Art news from Spain

Fra Angelico's Virgin of the Pomegranate:  from a private collection to The Prado museum, its due home, thanks to the present day duke of Alba (yes, it is a real person). (I was so surprised to hear this piece of news, I had been lucky to see this painting and after initial speechlessness followed by some ohs, ahhs, wows, OMGs... I could not stop repeating to myself "this should be in The Prado")

 The Hug, by Juan Genovés to the Congress building

                       (I would like to conduct a world survey: Does this painting inspire any feelings to you?

 If so, what kind? )

 Ceiling frescoes of Saint Nicholas Church in Valencia restored. Judge for yourself if they deserve the nomination as "Spain's Sixtine Chapel")

Making Africa, A Continent of Contemporary Design

23 March - 28 August 2016 at CCCB, Barcelona

The exhibition showcases the work of over 120 African artists and creators and illustrates how design fuels economic and political changes. Making Africa speaks, from Africa, of a new continent “under construction” and places emphasis on its possibilities over its problems.

“Thinking about the future means thinking about our possibilities in the world. The future belongs to Africa, because it seems to have happened everywhere else already.” 
Okwui Enwezor, Consulting Curator of Making Africa

annnnndddd:

Bosch. The 5th Centenary Exhibition

El Prado Museum, 31.05.2016 - 11.09.2016

Remedios Varo

Today I love this painting by Remedios Varo: Papilla Estelar, 1958

As regards important exhibitions, it is all about El Greco in Spain this year. Last year it was all about Surrealism (according to some, in order to mirror "l'esprit du temps").

 If you'd like to check a list with all the works that were featured at the exhibition "Surrealism and the dream" at the Thyssen Museum in Madrid, you can find them all on this microsite, just click here.

About painting

From left to right: Julie Manet, Paul Valéry, Paule Gobillard, Ernest Rouart and Jeannie Gobillard. 

Source:  henkverveer from the Netherlands

About me

My current wallpaper

Jean Béraud, Une soirée,1878

A painting from the Musée d'Orsay in Paris

(this image 3543x1975 px)

Meet Béraud. What would his opinion be on the oil-to-pixels question?

Bundi wall paintings

Bundi, Rajasthan, India

link to coole photography

Happy Valentine's day

Gotha lovers (Gothaer Liebespaar)  by the Master of the Housebook,1480-1485

at the Herzogliches Museum, Gotha, Germany

                                         
                                             Pentheus torn apart by Agave and Ino

"If we want to be positive about it, this is the first recession we spend together"

About painting

Edouard-Dammouse

Marie-Bracquemond at her easel

142,4 million dollars

Excuse my limited vocabulary : Come on!

About painting

Painters love picnics

M. Manet wasn't the first one to depict a picnic apparently

About painting

painting by Guillermo Pérez Villalta, Solitude, 1970

On show until 12 January 2014 at the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville

Today I love

this painting by Pedro Osés, "Dedis", 1971

 and this one by Guillermo Pérez Villalta, Morning self-portrait, 1973

= Same painting, different setting

Painting outdoors

(no, it's not me)

El Prado report

Amazing!

The whole catalogue of the exhibition Captive Beauty. Fra Angelico to Fortuny online on one page. Then by clicking on any one image we can go to another page with explanations about the painting and a larger image, such a great idea.

All the paintings belong to the museum but are not often on display.
El Prado Museum, from 21 May 21 till 10 November 2013. Madrid. Spain

Vicente Palmaroli y González, En vue, XIX century

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, The duchess of Alba and her governess, 1795

This is one of the most puzzling, unsettling paintings I've ever seen, 

 John-Francis Rigaud, The three favourite air travellers, c 1785

(the travellers were Vicenzo Lunardi, George Biggin and Leticia Anne Sage)

- I think I should eventually go on posting images here -hmm, yes, definitely-

Why are unfinished paintings so fascinating?

Maybe just because we get to see what the line does to the void, in this confrontation we see clear evidence of where creation comes from, from nowhere, from the artist's will.

It's worth reading about the life of William Wilberforce( here), an activist for the abolition of slavery in the XIX century. Have you seen the film Amazing Graze? That's him.

About painting

by Utrillo, Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris

about painting

by Jean Alphonse Roehn

via pictify

On the news

Next 23 May , if you have some 2 - 2.8 million euros to spare,  you might become the happy owner of this painting by Sorolla: Niños en la playa (kids on the beach, what else) painted in 1916. It will be sold at an auction at Sotheby's in London. 

According to the website hoyesarte.com it will be on display for a while in Spain, New York and London before that date (it doesn't say when I'm afraid)

Oh, man, if you're going to buy it, please don't take it to one of those warehouses in Singapur!

from www.hoyesarte.com 

Inside the Tuileries Palace

Eugenia (or Eugenie) de Montijo (wife of Napoleon III, the last French Emperor) in a salon inside the now long gone Tuileries Palace
Painted by  Jean (or Giuseppe)  Giraud Castiglione

From the Legado Casa de Alba Exhibion, Madrid 

Extended until the 21/04/2013

(aren't there too many parentheses in this post?)