Lisboa - The National Museum of Ancient Art - Temporary exhibitions ("Cuerpos de Dolor" , "Time of Heroes" and "King Afonso V of Portugal and the tapestries of Pastrana") ...

I have once more had the priviledge of "experiencing" moments of extreme joy by watching two temporary exhibitions at the National Museum of Ancient Art yesterday, one covering the golden age of Spanish sculpture and the other depicting a singular series of drawings by a Portuguese painter.

"Cuerpos de dolor" provides us with a sample of sculptures from the Museo National de Escultura de Valladolid in what is a sequence of expressive demonstrations of faith, regarding a period in which the central role of religion seems to have given rise to an artistic exteriorization of this devotional phenomenon and thus a number of  outstanding sculptors (Berruguete, Juan de Juni, Pompeo Leoni and Gregorio Fernandéz just to mention a few).

I photographed the first amazing series of 15th century sculptures representing four Apostles (St. Mathew, St. John, St. Marcus and St. Lucas) attributed to Felipe Bigarny, to soon find out that photographing was not allowed.

The other sculptures of significantly bigger size were exhibited in three different rooms and were as equally expressive, particularly the ones depicting the Virgin and St. Anthony.

I then walked into a rather small room which was exhibiting "Time of Heroes"  a series of about a dozen drawings by the Portuguese painter Domingos Antonio Sequeira corresponding to the period from 1789 to 1823 fertile in historical events.The French Revolution through to the Napoleonic expansion and the first  liberal outburst in Portugal naturally led the painter to adapt his images to these different moments.

Allegory to the Nation united around the Prince Regent preparing for war (c.1802) - black pencil, brush, brown ink and white gouache (left). Allegory to the expulsion of the French troops (1808) - Charcoal, pen, brush and Indian ink (right).

I quite liked the details and the fact that only a few drawings were in display didn't in any way diminish the quality of the exhibition.

These reminded me of one of the 2010 temporary exhibitions (King Afonso V of Portugal and the tapestries of Pastrana) I had the chance of watching in these same premises.  I wrote a rather small article illustrated with just two photographs, having since then realised it has been the most saught article in my blog, I have decided to therefore download all the photographs I took.