Today has started with an oxymoron.
It is brightly dull or dully bright. It is not a convincing morning, neither one thing nor another. And it’s still windy. The new padded lounger is optimistically facing outwards to where the blazing sun should be and is looking emptily forlorn as its raison d’etre is sitting indoors morosely typing rather than lounging in the warmth.
It is the sort of day when I would, in the past, have girded my loins and made an expedition into town to scour the bookshops for a suitable consumer durable to ameliorate climatic angst. Although Cardiff is described as having an equitable climate (and to be fair it does) this charitable description does not preclude generous amounts of rain. I find rain depressing and the only way of coping is to treat myself with the printed word. That is one of the reasons that Bluspace has a substantial number of cardboard boxes filled with the compensatory volumes which were emotional counterweights to the debilitating depression that is the inevitable consequence of dull, damp days in Wales. Of course, when the weather was fine then it was time for me to buy a book to celebrate. I alwys try and live a win/win sort of life!
Luckily my weekend goodies are waiting in the newsagent. Each Saturday La Vangardia has special offers so I get two books and a CD. The most important volume is the next one in the Great Catalan Painters series.
I have steadily been increasing my knowledge of a series of painters whose names were previously totally unknown to me. The series includes such luminaries as Picasso (claimed by Catalonia, though born in Malaga) Miró, Dalí and Gaudí who are very well known, through artists who at least I had heard of like Rusiñol and Casas through to artists who are very important in Catalonia and were unknown to me like Fortuny, Urgell, Meifrèn, Anglada-Camarasa and Guinovart. It is a fascinating study and repays any effort.
The drawings and paintings of Casas are a revelation; he has the fluency of line and perception of a Daumier and other 'unknown' Catalan artists can take their place easily with some of the best in Europe for their time.
It has now become doggedly fine, so I’ll shower and venture out to get my presents and settle down for a trying read as I attempt to work out what the Catalan might mean when applied to the painting on the opposite page!
Wish me luck!
It is the sort of day when I would, in the past, have girded my loins and made an expedition into town to scour the bookshops for a suitable consumer durable to ameliorate climatic angst. Although Cardiff is described as having an equitable climate (and to be fair it does) this charitable description does not preclude generous amounts of rain. I find rain depressing and the only way of coping is to treat myself with the printed word. That is one of the reasons that Bluspace has a substantial number of cardboard boxes filled with the compensatory volumes which were emotional counterweights to the debilitating depression that is the inevitable consequence of dull, damp days in Wales. Of course, when the weather was fine then it was time for me to buy a book to celebrate. I alwys try and live a win/win sort of life!
Luckily my weekend goodies are waiting in the newsagent. Each Saturday La Vangardia has special offers so I get two books and a CD. The most important volume is the next one in the Great Catalan Painters series.
I have steadily been increasing my knowledge of a series of painters whose names were previously totally unknown to me. The series includes such luminaries as Picasso (claimed by Catalonia, though born in Malaga) Miró, Dalí and Gaudí who are very well known, through artists who at least I had heard of like Rusiñol and Casas through to artists who are very important in Catalonia and were unknown to me like Fortuny, Urgell, Meifrèn, Anglada-Camarasa and Guinovart. It is a fascinating study and repays any effort.
The drawings and paintings of Casas are a revelation; he has the fluency of line and perception of a Daumier and other 'unknown' Catalan artists can take their place easily with some of the best in Europe for their time.It has now become doggedly fine, so I’ll shower and venture out to get my presents and settle down for a trying read as I attempt to work out what the Catalan might mean when applied to the painting on the opposite page!
Wish me luck!
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