Day two of my art course...

[kazzy_cee]

Today the forecast was for some rain, so I grabbed an umbrella before heading off for The Wallace Collection for day two of my course. This week we looked at the 16th Century baroque paintings.  Firstly we learned a little bit of background of the Reformation (1519), the Counter-Reformation, and how quickly Protestantism spread across Northern

Comments

[lblanchard]

I'm not a great fan of the classical Baroque, at least the examples you've presented here. I admit that I generally pass by our own Baroque galleries in search of something more to my taste. I like that Carvaggio and also the Morillo, though. I do like the fact that the babies look like babies and not middle-aged midgets.

I had to look up Ben Nevis on Wikipedia. It looks pretty forbidding, but I gathered that upwards of 100,000 make the summit every year. That's a lot of hikers!

[pondhopper]

MUrillo. (With U the painter, not O) MOrillo is our last name.
:)
One of Seville's finest along with Velazquez, both Seville natives. We hear a lot about them around here and I have to say that they are the kind of Baroque I can appreciate. I do not like Baroque architecture much but there is a lot of incredible Baroque painting.

[kazzy_cee]

We covered far more than I've postered here, but the general consensus from the group was that we weren't that much of a fan of the classic baroque 'stiffness' in some of the paintings. However, the trend towards more realistic-looking people was appreciated.

Yes - the path up the mountain is very popular. As it was so wet then didn't meet many yesterday though!

[pondhopper]

Like I told Laura, this is the kind of Baroque I do appreciate. There are some exceedingly wonderful painters in the Baroque period. Velázquez and Murillo are two painters from Sevilla we see a lot of for obvious reasons. Our fine arts museum here in Seville has a Murillo room in the church of the convent which is home to the museum. I'm not sure to what extent Velázquez was all that influenced by Rubens...at least for how long a time. Mr. V was too much his own artist to follow others for very long. When we're in the Prado in Madrid I can spend forever with Velázquez (but then there's Goya et al as well

[kazzy_cee]

I like your enthusiasm!

Velázquez and Rubens spent 9 months living together apparently - and you can see some of the influence in some of his paintings such as the Rokeby Venus.

Yes, we had a look at the street urchin paintings which were made to publicise the need to help get the children off the streets after the plague orphaned so many. They were like little snapshots of life and I thought they were very naturalistic.