In the Low Countries, 3: Art in context
One of the benefits of our journey was seeing famous and familiar art works in contexts that made them new and required a fresh interpretation. Seeing reproductions in books and the Internet or, if we’re lucky, the originals in a museum can be no more than a start to understanding it. Being there, in the … read more »
The troubled killer
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt My rating: 4 of 5 stars In the 1850s, time of the California gold rush, Charlie and Eli Sisters are on contract to track down and kill a man they don’t know, Hermann Kermit Warm. To do this, they must travel from Oregon City — the last civilized outpost … read more »
In the Low Countries, 2: Language, art and history
What intrigued me most about the Low Countries were their languages and art, keys to understanding their complex cultures and their roles, passive and active, in clashes that have transformed the world. The decades of wars in the 16th-18th centuries involving Spain, France and Austria, each with their local Nederlander allies, the defeat of Napoleon … read more »
In the Low Countries: Belgium
The main aim and greatest satisfaction — besides beer and chocolates — of our recent visit to Belgium and The Netherlands was place sensing, which is much more than “site seeing.” Place sensing means taking in the smells, from rancid frites to flowers, fish and sea brine; the sounds of gutturals and oddly twisting vowels … read more »
Guernica, 80 years on
Today, 26 April 2017 is the 80th anniversary of the German bombardment of the small Basque town of Gernika — “Guernica” in Spanish. And on this day we spent hours seeing and studying in context the presentation of Pablo Ruiz Picasso’s painting Guernica in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid. Weeks … read more »