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01Sep 2024 by kike_K No Comments

Quentin De La Tour

Painting

I was always intrigued by both the self-assurance and the kindness of the painter Maurice Quentin De La Tour (1704-1788) shown in the self-portrait made in the fullest expression of his fame also showing astonishing technical skills. Admiring that smile and the elegant blue coat it is difficult to think of the sad end of this French artist, one of the best painters, he was a much prominent figure in the Rococo period. The last years he stayed representing got mad and lived in seclusion.De La Tour was one of the greatest pastel painters with a much delicate technique which requires specific paper or boards with the adding of a fixative to avoid the colours to peel. All these problems can be solved using materials produced nowadays. In the past, the…

The Café Ajenjo

Singular places

In the middle of the Malasaña neighborhood, there is a tiny little attended pedestrian street called Galería de Robles. This is where Café Ajenjo is located, with an old-fashioned look but so cozy, so quiet, mostly unchanged as the years go by, true to itself far from the hustle, such a wonderful oasis, a lost island. Everything seems to welcome the visitor who is passing by, the facade, the old lanterns, a subtle golden light coming from the inside. I always think of the Ajenjo café as the right place for Antoine Roquentin, it should have existed a placed like this in Bouville; a place where he should have ended his rides to sit at one of the tables to read, to take notes on his book about the Rollebon Marquis…

Hasui Kawase (1883-1957)

Illustration

I do love the rain and the falling snowflakes so many times present in Hasui Kawase's woodblock prints; engraver, printer, watercolourist and a Japanese 'national living treasure', following a particular technique, the woodcut printing with water inks (moku hanga), a technique dating back from the beginning of the 17th century, during the rise of the Edo period.Japan featured by Kawase is timeless. One does not really know if these narrow streets, the storm has flooded, the temples covered by the snow and the indoor sceneries are modern post-war sceneries or if they are Japanese Samurai Middle-age ones.