Culture at last!

Waiting for a 95 in meaninglessly spiteful drizzle I wondered about the complete lack of information we have about what is happening to the bus system.

Bus prices were hiked by a third as a gesture towards repairing the ravages of the Crisis and there has been a reorganization of bus stops so that one bus appears to have vanished.

The most direct bus into Barcelona is the 94 but that bus seems to have been banned from our part of the world, so I had to be satisfied with the 95 which stops everywhere before it gets to its destination.

But at least I got a seat, and eventually I was able to change it for one pointing in the right direction.  And eventually get to the exhibition for a visit which has been long delayed.

“Maestros Franceses deal Colección Clark” was an amazing collection of paintings from the Barbizon School to the Impressionists and slightly beyond.

Apart from the Clarks’ unhealthy preoccupation with Renoir – whose unhealthily saccharine works have never appealed to me – the collection is astonishing.  It is inclusive and revealing.  A Monet of a storm at sea dating from 1886 and other early examples of famous artists gives an alternative view of some of their work.  For example a Caillebotte painting from 1892 has elements which give it the appearance of a piece of Fauvist art, a far cry from his more urban meticulousness!

My cordial dislike of Corot continues centred I think on his smeary approach to the portrayal of trees, though I also have to admit that an Italian oil for c. 1840 had all the sketch-like vitality of a watercolour by Cotman!

It is difficult to retexture the revolutionary nature of many of the paintings – especially when all these canvases are framed with such portentously ornate gilding!  We do not now see the odd industrial chimney as an astonishingly outré aspect of a “pretty” landscape; we fail to find the odd shapes of Degas paintings and he cut-off figures as bizarre; Pointillist and other colour experiments are seen as decorative rather than dangerous!

The painting I would most like to have stolen was by Lautrec” La espera” from 1888, a deceptively simple work of a back view of a young woman sitting at a circular table with a glass in front of her.  Her head is turned slightly to the right and she has a certain world-weariness which is always engaging in Lautrec’s work.  The composition of the piece is exceptional with a contrapuntal movement of geometric forces giving a dynamism to the painting where the point of eye contact of the young woman with the viewer seem immanent.

There is a Daumier, a Fantin-Latour, a couple of Tissots and a scattering of Major Names to keep any art watcher happy.

This is an exhibition well worth visiting.  And, at the moment, the exhibitions in La Caixa are still free.  Long may it continue!

“The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak is now read.  A book narrated by Death about a young girl fostered in war time Germany and lined to the position of Jews in that disastrous time should have been more disturbing than I found this book.

At times the technique overtook the story telling and I found myself admiring the style rather than the content.  It is always a problem when dealing with the horrors of World War II and the Final Solution that the subject matter is more powerful than the author is capable of making the slant that he is adopting for his story line.

There were (I discovered) two pages of adulatory comments from magazines from around the world at the start of the book, but I cannot be as enthusiastic about it.  There were moving and stimulating parts to the novel but it left me essentially dissatisfied.

Tomorrow Toni is going to cook his first paella.