Art of Shadow - May 18, 2014
I've been contemplating the paucity of interesting visual art in contemporary Spain, and now finally spending time in the Prado, exposed to room after room of dark color, dark subject, dark spirit in Spanish artists' paintings am feeling the long shadow of this culture portrayed by its creative sons (not a woman among them). A shadow that includes the inquisition, brutal colonial conquest, Franco's fascism, and countless wars and slaughter.
The images below, are from Goya, The Dog, painted at the end of his life on the walls of his house as part of the so called black paintings, probably never meant for public view, and Velazquez, Crucifixion, one of several Spanish treatments of the subject against a black ground.
Other than Sorolla, there is little evidence of painterly beauty as light, color, and impression and hence no tradition of what one would expect to see in public places like hotels and restaurants. What I do see is limited and consists of overdone splashes of saturated color and meaningless texture ... completely uninteresting. The dark tradition doesn't translate to modern public commercial expectation.
I am appreciating the beauty in the depth of darkness.
The images below, are from Goya, The Dog, painted at the end of his life on the walls of his house as part of the so called black paintings, probably never meant for public view, and Velazquez, Crucifixion, one of several Spanish treatments of the subject against a black ground.
Other than Sorolla, there is little evidence of painterly beauty as light, color, and impression and hence no tradition of what one would expect to see in public places like hotels and restaurants. What I do see is limited and consists of overdone splashes of saturated color and meaningless texture ... completely uninteresting. The dark tradition doesn't translate to modern public commercial expectation.
I am appreciating the beauty in the depth of darkness.
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| Francisco Goya, The Dog |
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| Diego Velazquez, Christ Crucified |
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