Archives for the month of: May, 2014
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/charles-blackman-artworks-up-for-sale-to-pay-for-his-care-20140328-35nce.html
charles blackman’s art up for sale to pay for his care…
Picasso-Guernica-Study-b919
picasso working in his studio
http://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp
http://www.museoreinasofia.es/en/collection/artwork/guernica
http://www.galilean-library.org/site/index.php/page/index.html/_/essays/art/the-roots-of-modern-art-part-8-picasso-ii-r16
i hadn’t been to madrid for nearly 15 years or so. guernica was as always a must see for good reason. guernica actually seems a much larger work in my memory. this was my third visit to guernica and the balance throughout the piece was gobsmacking! there was a documentary playing, showing some of picasso’s earlier stages in the process. such a clear an massive difference between an idea and the exactly and successfully executed idea.we go back to madrid again next year.it’ll be interesting to see what impression it has me next time. although, grey, black and white, i was almost unaware of what the tones were,but was completely absorbed by the balance of composition. power…powerful energy.
a wonderfully demanding task at the end of a long parade around the prado. i see the king and queen…essential to the understanding. spot them first and work it out from there!but as jonathan jones says, it’s an unsettlingly weird, eerie and uneasy scene…the dog kicker seems to be the only relaxed figure!..
astonishingly, picasso painted 58 responses/versions of las meninas. pyrotechnics of painterly imagination.
so, if you look at yesterday’s blog, you will see some of picasso’s versions of las meninas.
the puppet, 1792
1795 Duchess of Alba and “la Beata,” her dueña by Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes , Prado
The Parasol, 1777, courtesy of the Museo del Prado
//www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/painting/spanish-painting/goya-and-18th-century-painting/
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (Spanish painter, 1746–1828) Maria Luisa de Parma con tontillo
so many paintings in the prado…swamping almost. too many writhing bodies for me. i am always drawn to the single image, even two figures too much. i may take this painting and re-style her somewhat. i like the oddity of the balanced hat and the very wide, boxy skirt. the enormous hair, the tiny feet, the delicacy of hands…cartoon-like. beautiful work by goya. the paintwork in the material is mesmerising.puckish face-reality plus!
the parasol…i enjoy the way goya has divided the canvas with a plunging diagonal, offset by the limpid branch of a tree… fabulous light, lightness, composition.
in the painting, duchess of alba teasing her duena, the two bodies become one.a very clever device of having the duchess with her back to us, no face…allows you to concentrate on the duena. i have noticed over the last year that my preferences for the single image is definitely a dominant one. instagram is a wonderful visual diary and i seem to want to isolate very simple, clear images. i’ve noted on this last art trip that all the paintings i prefer and that attract my attention immediately are single figures or bold abstracts…there’s research possibilities here i realize, but not at present!
a turncoat’s lot 2012 oil on cavas
have kept the red detail on my desktop for weeks…have at last remembered to upload…this is just a reminder about colour for me…i don’t particularly like the way he works paint in his paintings…a bit too tight generally and strangely sort of curly!, but a wonderful colour sense, an intriguing imagination….very elegant titles that make you wonder…interesting, some lovely colour and marks. the weirdness is disturbing…but that’s some part of what he offers…
anniemsuganami 