Saturday, April 08, 2006

art

I have just been to see the fine art museum in Budapest. It was a bit late in afternoon to start on beer, so I went to the exhibition of Spanish artists at the galary. I usually spend some time looking at pictures when I am on holiday. Everytime, I think I should really do some reading on "art", so I have some idea what I am looking at, but then as I like what I like, and I am unlikely to follow the words of wisdom of at Eton educated art critic then perhaps there is no point. The exhibtion was packed. There were a number of Spanish painter from the fifteen century to the nineteenth century. I particulary wanted to see the paintings by Goya, for some reason that I can't articulate. The early paintings were of a religous nature. The colours were incredibly vivid on many of the paintings. There was one of Mary Magdiligton, with a tastifully exposed nipple. I bet the artist would not have guessed that in five hundred years, she had gone from whore to wife of Jeseus -- largely thanks to a literary scholar named Dan Brown. After the religous paintings there were some portraits of famous people at the time of painting. These tended to be rich dudes. There were some spanish courtiers who looked pretty mean and evil. I would be the lats person to make fun of their twisty mustaches (even hidden by the safety of a blog). The final room contained the pictures by Goya. There were pictures of simple peasants, maybe a knife grinder. This was a change in style from the portaits of the rich and powerfull. The little card said that Goya got depressed after a stroke and his paintings took on a more sinister air. There was one of battle scene in the spanish civil war for independence that looked like a blood stained mascare with very little glory. The final picture was two boys playing happily with a dog. The colours were bright and immediate. Yiu see I need to do more reading about Goya at least. I wonder if the rest of the audience knew the background to the pictures.