A coffee with Art

Sit down with me, just for the time of a good black espresso. Let's have a quick chat about Art.

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Paolo Veronese - The wedding at Cana (1562-1564)

on August 10, 2020

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Nicolas Poussin - Landscape with Polyphemus (1649)

An apparent, banal landscape. Art History is full of it. But nobody has the mythical, historical and mythological charm of this. Nicolas Poussin's painting is mythological. Mythical figures hidden in the bushes. A Polyphemus who seems an integral part of the mountain. Without a doubt we are faced with a vision and an invitation. We live in a world that is formed on the myth, let's see it in everyday life. They are not simple stories, it is the explanation of our being.

David BOMBERG - The mud bath (1914)

The mud bath 1914 Oil painting on canvas (152,5x224 cm) Tate Gallery, London ******* At first glance, it seems that this painting does not have the slightest figurative intention. In truth, the work is intended to represent a public bathroom frequented by the Jewish community of Whitechapel in London. The blue and white lines and figures make up the jumping figures that gather around the pool, represented by the red rectangle and seem to surround the dark central pillar. The angular forms are used by our painter to express the vitality and dynamism of the twentieth century and the enthusiasm for recent industrial development. Bomberg, the son of Polish immigrants, was one of the founders of the London Group, an association founded in 1913 for the organization of shows and exhibitions. Although Bomberg kept his distance from Cubists, Futurists and Vorticists, groups active at the time, his work can easily be identified with some of their theories. By 1920 Bomberg moved from geomet...

Lorenzo Lotto - Portrait of two spouses (1523-1524)

A nice portrait of a couple to celebrate a union. That it is also a happy union is a bit difficult to say, but from the faces it would seem serious. When you want to insert a symbol in a portrait, then you must expect the doors of guess and meaning hunt to open. The man points to a squirrel that remains in the dark and one must struggle to see it. What is represented? You do: lust, according to a medieval legend when the food is scarce the squirrel drives out the female or domestic prudence. The possibilities are not lacking. But man holds a sheet of paper where it is written in Latin: man never. The hypotheses are and will remain open, the solution is a certainty only for the couple.

Claude Monet - Pond in Montgeron (1876-1877)

Monet breaks all the rules of painting based on light, shape and color; sets the hues of Nature without asking which real object they belong to. We begin to lose the hegemony of the object; only the sensations that are imprinted on his retina are reproduced. The brush strokes are as vigorous as only light can be. A decorative work in terms of size, shape and subject. With a surprise: cherchez la femme!

Pietro Perugino - Apollo and Marsyas (c. 1495)

The Master from Perugia, who deserves more space in the world of art, was not a trivial and easy to read painter. The first criticism is based on the falcon that seizes the prey to interpret the painting as an Apollo listening to Marsyas, in the competition that obviously will win the beautiful Greek god. Marsyas was a satyr, does the painted one seem a satyr?!? A more current (and perhaps more precise) interpretation sees the young pastor Dafni intent on playing the young (in Greek it means laurel, from laurel comes Lorenzo). A beautiful allegory wanted by Lorenzo the Magnificent? Likely. What is certain is that the two figures are copied from two great works of the past signed by Praxiteles and by the school of Lisippo.

Rogier Van Der Weyden - Saint Luke portrays the Madonna (c. 1435)

Robert Campin's lesson has been well studied, learned and passed by the student. The interior embellished with incredible drapery and the inevitable checkerboard floor opens onto a breathtaking panorama of the city. An incredibly attentive San Luca portrays a Madonna del Latte. He who portrayed the life of Jesus and his birth here in words pays homage to the art of which he is patron. Light and shadow play in this painting to create depth and intimacy.

Rembrandt - Danae (1636-1650)

Authentic or not, some still discuss it. Original? After a restoration someone says it has been replaced. A deranged man ruined it in 1985 and it is thought that the secret services are also behind it. One certainty: in Dutch painting they have never been so bold with a nude! Rembrandt seems to have broken the mold of demure Northern European education. A theme that has studied and reworked a lot is presented in this riot of drapes and fabrics.