Sorolla Museum, Madrid

A well-loved museum in Madrid, and according to some reports, the best loved one.

All you need are roses, I wish.
(Some of these photos are from last year's temporary exhibition "Gardens of light").

more infos in English

This piece of news made me happy today

Melbourne Winter Masterpieces - Museo del Prado

Italian Masterpieces from Spain’s Royal Court at the National Gallery of Victoria

16 May 2014 – 31 Aug 2014

From NGV's website:

"The holdings of Italian art in the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid are unique and unrivalled in museums outside Italy.  Drawn from its magnificent collection, this exhibition of over 70 paintings and 30 drawings presents a rich selection of works spanning 300 years of Italian art, from the early sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries.

More than 70 artists are represented including Raphael, Correggio, Titian, Tintoretto, the Carracci, Poussin and Tiepolo.  The exhibition reflects the taste of the Spanish Royal Court whose Kings and Courtiers avidly collected Italian art.  Successive rulers also commissioned works directly from the artists in Italy or enticed them to Spain to work in the Royal Household.  Many of these works are at the heart of the Prado’s collection and have never before left Spain.

The exhibition is organised by Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid in association with the National Gallery of Victoria and Art Exhibitions Australia."

More positive wish

Going to Madrid to see this exhibition: MACCHIAIOLI. Impressionist realism in Italy (from 12 september to 5 January at the Fundación Mapfre, Madrid)

Notes from their website:

In Florence, towards 1855, a group of young painters was undertaking a quest for a new kind of art. They were deeply opposed to both the academic style of painting and historic Romanticism, the contexts of their training, and were pursuing truthfulness in art, adopting outdoor painting as their preferred practice. In their paintings, small in size, but grandiose in their conception, these young painters created an authentic and innovative vision of the Tuscan landscape, with stark contrasts of light and shadow achieved through the juxtaposition of blotches of colour. Giovanni Fattori, Silvestro Lega, Telemaco Signorini, Giuseppe Abbati, Giovanni Boldini and Odoardo Borrani were among the main protagonists of the movement, all of them gathered around critic and patron Diego Martelli.

 Known as the Macchiaioli (“blotch-makers”) – a name intended to be pejorative, alluding to the marked simplicity of their paintings – they were the instigators of one of the most brilliant chapters of the modernization of European painting, anticipating a significant number of the premises later proclaimed by the Impressionists.


Light and shadow, it still matters.  It still has to matter somehow.

About painting

painting by Guillermo Pérez Villalta, Solitude, 1970

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

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-

Clay figurines, Mesopotamia

Naked woman with long hair, probably from Northern Mesopotamia (=Syria), c. 2000 BC

Royal Ontario Museum - Toronto

To the right: goddess figure, Northern Syria, 2000-1600 BC

Allard Pierson Museum - Amsterdam

Bronze Age, 2300-2000 BC, from Northern Mesopotamia (=Syria) Euphrates region
Musées Royaux d'art et d'histoire, Brussels

Photos from the exhibition Before the deluge, Mesopotamia 3500-2100 BC

On display at CaixaForum Madrid,  from March 27 to June 30 2013

The history of Ancient Near East civilizations is fascinating. Did you know that this people "drew" the plans of houses :