29Sep 2019 by kike_K No Comments
Antonio Moro

Antonio Moro

Painting
Visiting the Prado Museum anytime is certainly one of the benefits of buying the yearly subscription for the national Museums. One can go there to watch a work in particular or to poke around the bookshop without paying any entrance costs. Today I am heading to one of my favourite halls, the one where the portraits done by Van Dyck are displayed. Anyway, I am well aware of my true motive: standing in front of the outstanding painting of María de Inglaterra (Mary of England) by Antonio Moro, 1517-1576, (whose real name is Anthonis Moor Van Dashort), the most amazing portraitist in the Flemish School for the whole 16th century. Mary, with her stern, intelligent and piercing eyes make us feel a bit uneasy, the thin pursed lips slightly unveiling…
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15Aug 2019 by kike_K No Comments
Book I: “Old Masters”

Book I: “Old Masters”

Painting
I discovered the Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989) just as usual, by chance (I was having a look in a bookshop, and his book was there on a bookshelf); eager to read but with no preconceived idea. Just from the beginning his style so particular, so repetitive and sort of hypnotic (he almost never uses full-stop) caught me; it is so really difficult to get used to it. Reading Bernhard half-heartedly paying no attention to the text can be quite maddening. He easily creates a bunch of memorable characters such as the Prince Saurau (Gargoyles) or the painter Strauch (Frost), we will be referring to them in some other entries. On the other hand, all references to Art or more particularly to painting are a constant in his books. The…
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07Aug 2019 by kike_K No Comments
Luis Melendez

Luis Melendez

Painting
There is an old building near my home with a plaque to show the location of Miguel Jacinto Melendez’s workshop. He was a painter in the court of the Spanish King Felipe V. I often thought about his young nephew Luis Egidio Melendez (1716-1780) and supposed he used to work there too. Luis Egidio Melendez was one of the best still-life painters in the world. Among his well-known works, there is a much interesting self-portrait (exhibited at the Louvre) and a series of forty-eight still-life paints ordered in 1771 by the Prince of Asturias, the next King Charles IV who intended to decorate his own private quarters. Thirty-nine are nowadays a part of the Prado Museum’s collection. I’d like to specially focus on one of these called, Servicio de chocolate,…
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