Friday 31 August 2012

Unregistered Postcrossing cards ...



I always get disappointed and sad whenever the postcrossing cards I have sent don't reach their destinations, or rather ... are not registered as having reached their destinations.

This time the "trend" has changed ... they are not only Art cards ... and  apart from China have been sent to countries like Belgium and Germany  (rather unusual  ... as far as non-registrations are concerned).

May they be acknowledged and seen in my blog "wall" where they cannot be favourited ... but have earned the right to "exist" ...




 PT-246997 to China






                                                           
  PT-250478 to Germany








   PT- 250633 to Belgium












Wednesday 29 August 2012

Friday evening in Nattages - The 24th of August 2012




I flew to Geneva airport on Friday and reached Nattages in France by late afternoon. As Christian made his way to the swimming pool I opted to wandering about ... "feeling" the beauty of the surrounding nature and breathing in some fresh air ...















I believe it is only when one moves to the countryside, whether it is temporarily or not, that one realises there may be quite  a few disadvantages in living in a capital city and not being able to have some of the countryside "little" pleasures ... the scent of flowers ... the smell of wet grass ... the mountains ... and even the sky ( at least not as often as one wants to) ...








































As evening fell I wondered if that hadn't been one of the best birthday presents I had had the privilege of having been "given" ...








"The Happy Modernism Art Deco in Portugal , painting, drawing and sculpture - 1912 -1960" - Temporary exhibition at Museum of Chiado, Lisbon - The 18th of August 2012



I spent the whole morning and part of the afternoon at Chiado Museum, which has assembled some of the most meaningful paintings, drawings and sculptures of Modernism in Portugal dating back from 1912 through to 1960.

I started on  the first floor and made my way through all the second floor rooms, taking some photographs and thoroughly reading what had been written about them, as amongst some of those being exhibited were some of my favourite Portuguese painters, such as Almada Negreiros, Mario Eloy and Eduado Viana.







Antonio Soares - oil on canvas, painted around 1933.






















Almada Negreiros - Indian ink on paper - 1920 (Left). Stuart Carvalhais - Indian ink on cardboard - around 1925 (Right).





















Amadeo de Sousa Cardoso - Indian ink on paper (Left). Jorge Barradas - 1927 cover for the Portuguese Magasine ABC (Right)





















Cristiano Cruz - Gouache on cardboard -1916-18 (Left). Eduardo Viana - oil on canvas - 1919 (Right)





















Adriano Sousa Lopes - "Portrait of Margerite Gros Perroux" - oil on canvas -1920  (Left). Lino Antonio - oil on canvas - 1926 (Right).









Almada Negreiros - Indian and aniline ink on paper - 1912




















Almada Negreiros - "Self portrait of the painter, seated at a café table with the Spanish dancer and actress Julia de Aguillar, the actress Aurora Gil and the professor and poet Doria Nazaré" - oil on canvas - 1925 (Left). Almada Negreiros - "The Sunbathers" - oil on canvas - 1925 (Right).








Eduardo Viana -"Nude" - oil on canvas -1925

















Almada Negreiros - "Nude" - oil on canvas - 1926








Abel Manta -"The Chess players" - oil on canvas - 1927.





















Carlos Botelho - "Portrait of Berta Mendes" - oil on cardboard - 1932 (Left). Abel Manta - "Portrait of Berta Mendes" - oil on canvas 1934 (Right).






















Mario Eloy -"Self portrait" - oil on canvas - 1928 (Left). Mario Eloy - "Portrait of the dancer Francis" - oil on canvas - 1930 (Right).









 Jorge Barradas -"Anunciação"" - oil on canvas - 1936








Canto da Maya - "Family" - Terracotta - 1927





 





Canto da Maya - "Adam and Eve" - polychromed terracotta" - 1929-39






The temporary exhibition unveiling various influences from pyramidal compositions to  stylised figures or the visible linearity of "classical" Picasso and the analytical Cezannian brushwork type of approach was very well organised enhancing the variety of Portuguese Art Deco representations  within a particular time frame.



I spent around four hours in the Museum premises and felt I might have even spent some more time ... there is nothing like Art to appease one's soul ...
















Friday 17 August 2012

The most recent Lisbon Metro station ... and Julio Pomar, Paula Rego and Maria João Pires ...



(...)

Out of the 53 representations on the glaze tiled walls of the metro station of the Airport only three correspond to living artists - the painters Paula Rego and Julio Pomar and the pianist Maria João Pires. 

One could say they all seem to have (at least) one thing in common - none of them lives in Portugal, Paula Rego and Julio Pomar, who have both been living in England and France (respectively) since the 60's and Maria João Pires, who has moved to Brazil a few years ago.

The reasons that have led them to leave their home country behind may have been singularly different, but one thing is certain - they are praise worthy and rightly acclaimed, wherever they have decided to pursue their artistic lives.








Having studied painting at the Lisbon and Porto Academy of Fine Arts Julio Pomar joined the pictorial Neo Realism movement and painted some of the most memorable  images around 1945-1957. Having perceived his Art to be  a social and political intervening tool led him to be imprisoned during the totalitarian regime of Salazar. Pomar's career would later swerve into a completely different direction, though equally representative of his artistic talent.









"The monumentality and psychological drama of Paula Rego's paintings have established her as one of the most important figurative painters of her generation".

Some of her well known and acclaimed nursery rhyme paintings are disturbing taking their approach to cruelty, delusion, folly and sex, but so are many other of her paintings. One either loves or loathes what she paints, though very rarely will one feel indifferent towards them. 
It was in London she gradually emerged as a significant voice of Contemporary European Art ... and I sometimes wonder if she would have achieved such notoriety, had she stayed in Portugal.









"I can't think of a pianist with a more ideal command of Chopin's style. Pires trips through the roulades with filigree dexterity, but her  tone is so thoughtful, serious and weighty that they arrive with immense emotional profundity". - The Times, London, June 2007


Having been awarded numerous piano playing prizes, the first of which at the age of 9, for her unique approach to piano playing, Maria João Pires renounced to the Portugues nationality following a dispute with the Portuguese Government regarding the Artisitc Educational Project she had developed in Belgais, for which she was awarded a UNESCO prize.





"Without Art the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable" - George Bernard Shaw.










Thursday 16 August 2012

"Unregistered" postcrossing cards ...



I haven't yet got used to people not answering messages I have sent them politely asking them whether they would like me to send them a second card in case the one I had initially sent  (and which was not registered) might have got lost in the postal service.

The benefit of the doubt no longer exists the moment postcrossers don't answer the messages. There have been a few cases in which cards did get lost though I only found out about it the moment I sent a message to the postcrossers and they confirmed they hadn't received them, thus having been entitled to a second card.

Two more postcrossing cards will be exhibited in my blog, so as to gain the right of being seen and acknowledged as having been sent.


PT-248560 sent to Austria



PT-248642 sent to Finland









Wednesday 15 August 2012

A rather gloomy public holiday ...



I have been feeling rather gloomy ... for no apparent reason, I would say ... Some time ago I would just head towards the centre of town and the simple fact of wandering about would make me happy ... for no apparent reason that could be accounted for .... but it does not seem to work that well nowadays ...
 
I got on a bus heading to the centre of town and got off just by the river Tagus ... those white angels against a colourfully painted  façade I have often photographed  looked gloomy themselves ...















I then walked up towards Praça da Figueira Square and then Rossio ... but most shops were closed and the people you could see walking around were mostly foreigners ...



























It wasn't but at Saldanha metro Station, as I was waiting for Mia, that the first beam of happiness brightened up my gloomy day ... as I walked along the platforms photographing the decorated glazed tiles, whose themes were connected to the senses ... the seasons ... the parts of the day ...

I don't know why I hadn't noticed them before ... they have been there since 2009 ... and they are simply beautiful ...

















































































I'll have to go back some other time, maybe when I'll feel less gloomy to photograph the many more that decorate almost every little corner of the station ...