Courtesy of Bernardo Bellotto (1721-80), the sort of paintings you’d want not just to look at, but to live in, a world where the sun is just rising or setting, the light perfect and everything at peace…
Are there such uncomplicatedly beautiful places anywhere, anymore? Were there ever? Does it really matter? There are some things so lovely that the very possibility of their existence lifts the spirit in such a way as to survive even the finding out that they’re illusory…
Click on each to enlarge for full spectacular effect…
More Bellottos here.
Perhaps before 1939…
In theory, beauty is not only fleeting, but subjective and subject to changes of fashion over historical time. And yet…
I think the test is really whether you would be quite happy just to keep on looking at it forever…
Happy New Year. Let’s hope this one is somewhat better than the last!
The second pic is my favorite. There’s a tranquility to these paintings that may not exist in real life.
Thanks for the good wishes. I devoutly hope…
My favourite is the first picture (Verona). It just looks the warmest.
Yours is Dresden. I think that’s what Mahon means by pre ’39.
Are you kidding!? That’s Dresden. Oh my. That’s so sad
Hey, it’s been on my mind today…how do you feel about modern art? I think you favor the classics, but is there anything you like from present day?
(I think you already know how I feel about it)………
I like modern art, I don’t know that much about it but I would like to know more…
Abstracts leave me a bit cold but check out the Irish artist, Alice Maher. The Irish Museum of Modern Art hosted an exhibition of her work in Dublin before Christmas. I enjoyed it greatly. They showed a succession of her line drawings (link to one or two here) on a screen as if they were movies. Fascinating. I must have spent an hour watching them.
http://www.purdyhicks.com/artists/alicemaher/