A system worked out in steel

Found some old lathe gouges and chisels on a vintage tool site. The steel was in fair condition, but they had what looked like old bits of broomstick for handles. A good enough reason to buy a lathe. First project, of course, was to turn lathe tool handles and make copper ferrules.  Also an excuse to play with some nice timber.

(L to R) American Red Cherry, Black Walnut, American Sycamore and Eastern Blackbutt.

Three by Ward and Payne (Sheffield) and one by Robert Sorby (Sheffield, still in business.) Around 80 to 100 years old, maybe (just maybe) as old as late 19th Century. Paul Sellers, a traditional woodworking guru, says there never was finer tool steel than on Ward and Payne tools. Quite a lot came here, because it coped with our very tough woods and their bench chisels were popular on sailing ships. I've collected a few and intend to collect a few more.

They work beautifully. The steel whispers of the souls who have used them before me.

Blighty

Briefly. Time for one of these. 

Museu Coleção Berardo

José Berardo is one of the wealthiest individuals in Portugal. He’s also known for a) being under regular investigation for dodgy financial dealings, and b) having a spectacularly large collection of modern art. 

The collection is so spectacularly large that he’s done a deal with the Portuguese government whereby the best of the collection is housed in a publicly owned, purpose-built gallery, yet he retains ownership. The finer points of this arrangement escape me, but I do know the deal expires in 2022. Meanwhile, Lisbon has one of the major modern collections in Europe.

The Berardo Collection Museum is located in Belém, a half-hour tram ride from the centre of Lisbon. There are other museums and galleries here, some of which I may visit.

The collection is one of those “grand tours” of everything from Dadaism to Pop Art. Names include Duchamp, Mondrian, Picasso, Krasner, Rothko, Pollock, Warhol, Man Ray... you get the idea. Sadly, there’s a lack of depth here. Whether that means Berardo is a collector rather than an art lover is hard to ascertain. It might be the curators trying to educate the public by taking a strictly chronological approach. It might be that after six weeks of chasing the best that Western Europe has to offer, I’m just a jaded dilettante. Or perhaps the stuff on show is a bit B-movie. Whatever the truth, not one work from the (semi) permanent collection floated my boat.

The place was eerily empty. A couple of school groups were getting long lectures in front of particular works, but otherwise, I had the place to myself. There is no seating in any of the rooms (what Fascist made that decision?) so there was no chance to enter into communion with an artist. Maybe that’s the mundane reason why I didn’t get excited.

There were several temporary exhibitions. A couple of chaps from Macao taking photography to new levels of camp, and some drawings that might be good, but are probably beyond my capacity to interpret.

And there was Miguel Palma’s (Still) Modern Discomfort, which, to prove how completely shallow are my tastes, was the highlight of the day. 

Palma’s schtick runs the whole gamut from whiz to bang. Motors, fans, sudden noises, screens, devices and machines, things hanging, things clunking, things that scare babies. Palma is the ultimate 21st Century artist, knowing that to compete with the cyber age you need the Grand Guignol without the blood but twice as sinister. Goya it ain’t, but it got my attention.

No video that I could find about the current Palma exhibition, but this might give you the idea.

Ships in the night

I get a whiff of Fremantle about this part of Lisbon. Maybe the gulls, the salt air, the promenading couples, the rows of coffee shops and people on the make. The sun sets over the sea, too.

There’s a steady parade of cruise ships. Big, big ones, lights afire like a toppled skyscraper. A new one every day. I got talking with a taxi driver about them. He said they didn’t do much for the locals. People ate on board, caught big buses, and only ventured out on organised tours. He couldn’t remember if  he’d ever had a passenger from a cruise ship.

I’m supposed to love Lisbon, but I don’t. It’s disquieting. Locals don’t look you in the eye much. Alfama foreigners are like the street dogs in Bali. Part of the scenery, but not part of the scene.

Someone sold my Amsterdam umbrella today. I plonked it in the bucket outside a little shop and within a minute, the owner’s offsider had done a deal with a passer-by who took a fancy to it. I watched it unfold out of the corner of my eye, and ran outside with an armful of bread and water trying to think of any words in Portuguese I could use to hail the woman who’d paid a Euro for my much needed shelter. I got as far as olá (hello) and  obrigado (thank you), and then I had nothing. When I raised my voice a bit, in good, angry, culturally insensitive tourist manner, it prompted the seller to go after her. I got my umbrella back, but spent the next few hours casting subliminal aspersions.

I’ve taken to inhabiting a waterfront bar. They offer local snacks and Super Bock on tap. Nobody strikes up conversation, but there’s a kind of “this family owns a bar” pageant unfolding. I’m invisible to it, which isn’t such a bad thing. There’s a barmaid vaping by the door as I write this. Most of Europe seems to be vaping. I’ll bet there’s an Apple iVaper in front of focus groups right now.

Fact is, this is a poor place, and there’s a whole lot of mutual but not equal exploitation going on. Alfama residents carve out misshapen slices of their ancient homes, and hand them over to the BnB agents. The very pleasant woman in charge of my little dungeon manages more than 20 just like it. Tourists in denial about being a tourist rent these places, enjoying the clamber up rugged stone stairs that have tortured ten thousand old women. (The men smoke so much, they never get old.)

It’s easy to sound ungracious about this. There are probably far worse places for ripping off the locals. Bali comes to mind. But the tote-bag toting Westerners who tick Lisbon off their must-go list have a whole lot more in common with the come-and-gone-in-24-hours cruise ship zombies than the family of six sleeping in one small Alfama bedroom so that people like me can pretend we’re citizens of the world.

Might be time to go home.

Coming back to you

My suitcase returned, looking very sheepish. Actually, I had to collect it from the airport, as there’s no way to get a delivery where I’m staying.

I’m in Alfama, an older part of Lisbon where everything is uphill. Vehicle traffic impossível. So I wandered down the hill and grabbed an Uber. Several hours and multiple queues (take a ticket, wait your turn) later, I lugged the prodigal one up the hill to my little apartment. The rough cobbles wouldn’t allow wheeling, so it was quite the workout. The suitcase got there in good shape, me less so.

I had a restrained first day in Lisbon. It being a Sunday, things were quiet, at least until the afternoon when the locals set up the sound system formerly owned by Billy Thorpe and The Aztecs 50mm from my front door. I was treated to several hours of P-Pop, which is the Iberian equivalent of K-pop only louder and more banal. I cowered on my lounge, turned my headphones to eleven, and listened to Leonard Cohen’s Avalanche. ”I stepped into an avalanche, it covered up my soul...”  That showed ‘em.

When I did venture out (after chaining my errant suitcase to the bathtub) it was drizzling. I managed a walk around the neighbourhood, accidentally buying beer along the way. I’m drinking it now.

Saúde.

Lisbon

I made it to Lisbon. Unfortunately, my suitcase decided it preferred to make it to Barcelona.

I flew a very cut-price airline, so that meant, of course, going to Barcelona from Granada (north-east) and then to Lisbon from Barcelona (south-west). Why have a two hour flight when you can have a five hour flight?

I’m hoping to get a postcard from my suitcase by Christmas.

Take this waltz

I like that Granada's airport is named after Leonard Cohen's favourite poet

Leaving Alhambra

The salida wasn’t clearly marked, so I took a punt.

The Alhambra

It could have been a letdown. Crowds beyond what I expected, with lots of tour groups and schools. And steady rain in what is predominantly an outside experience.

I’ve been waiting to visit this place for years, so I was a bit concerned when I got through the entrance.

Stuff you probably know
It’s a palace built by the Moors from AD 889 with multiple iterations as the nature of the Islamic occupation evolved. After the Reconquista, Isabella and Ferdinand established their palace here in 1492. A few centuries later the Spanish crown moved on, and the Alhambra fell into disrepair. It was damaged by the French under Napoleon and the Moorish architecture overshadowed by the Spanish constructions built upon it. The first real restoration work began in 1830, and it’s now a hugely popular world heritage site.

In the end, it was everything I could have hoped. The gardens make it, although the Nasrid Palaces are a direct link to a branch of European history oft ignored. It’s easy to forget that the Iberian peninsula was under Islamic rule for some 700 years.

It was a bit of a slog. I walked from central Granada, and it’s mostly uphill. And the rain persisted down... persistently.

Gallery

If the player causes you trouble, you can find the Google gallery here.

A new city

I’m here:

No I’m not. I’m here:

Wrong again. I’m here:

Good enough. Tomorrow, the Alhambra.

A discovery at the Prado

My last day in Madrid, so I returned to the Prado this morning for another look at the Goya Pinturas negras.

I also came across an early portrait of Greta Thunberg:

Image Public Domain Prado

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía

The third of Madrid’s triple treat, the Reina Sofia is mainly devoted to Spanish Art of the 20th Century. The big names are there - Picasso, Dali, Miró, Gris - en masse. They are kept company by lesser known locals and a smattering of international contemporaries. There’s a temporary exhibition space, currently devoted to the works of (ho, hum) Jörg Immendorff.

You probably know the drill. Picasso is king of the castle, and Guernica is the crowd puller. Dali also has his fans, although he’s less savoury these days with his fascist tendencies. Miró is always good fun, but preferably in smaller doses. His work can get a bit noisy when there are twenty or more hanging next to each other.

Problem is, Guernica is a bit hollow in this age of Syria and Afghanistan. It could never signal enough for the horrors of the 24 hour news cycle. Another pixel in the static noise on our screens.
It’s why Goya can still get away with it. Picasso paints about an abstract nightmare. Goya paints us, or at least, a projection of us.

It is interesting, however, to see how much of the collection is focussed on the Spanish Civil War. I brought with me a copy of the 1983 five part documentary series on the war, just to answer a few questions that were bound to arise. It was an awful affair, and we’ve probably learnt nothing from it, but it’s obvious that the Spanish are still processing it. Ironically, the last time I was in Spain was two weeks before Franco died. They still can’t work out where to bury him.

So I’m not putting any images of the art up here. There was some good stuff, but it was the Reina Sofia itself that’s most worthy of writing home about. Housed in Madrid’s original general hospital, with some modern additions, it’s light and quiet, and I had many rooms to myself. 

I felt I was walking through the crypt of some airborne gothic cathedral. The vaulted ceilings, I’m happy to report, lined up perfectly.

Gallery

Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum

TOULOUSE-LAUTREC, Henri: Yvette Guilbert, 1893

The Thyssen is an art museum named after (the obviously filthy rich) Baron Heinrich Freiherr Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon et Impérfalva. Try saying that with your mouth full.

He (well, his son actually) bequeathed much of the family’s wide-ranging art collection to Madrid in 1992. It’s got all sorts of stuff, including Flemish and Dutch masters, Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works, and goodies from the 20th Century. It’s just across the way from the Prado, and supposedly “fills in the gaps” of the Prado’s collection.

As a bonus, they’ve got a temporary exhibition of Impressionist stuff alongside photographs from the period. 

I’ve added a gallery of a few works that took my fancy, but it could have been much more extensive. It’s a very broad collection of famous names. I particularly liked the Pollock:

POLLOCK, Jackson Brown and Silver 1 c.1951

And a very lush Max Ernst:

ERNST, Max 33 Little Girls Set Out
for the White Butterfly Hunt 1958

And joy of joys,  my gal Berthe Morisot gets a guernsey:

Berthe Morisot: View of Paris from the Trocadero 1872

Gallery

If you want more detail on the pictures, you can see the Google Photos gallery here.

Most  images public domain. Those that aren’t are used under Thuyssen Meseum’s non commercial use licence.

Saturday Night in Madrid

Pretty dull really. Absolutely nobody about. Very quiet.

The Prado

Velázquez: The Surrender at Breda 1635

I came to Madrid because I saw a Goya portrait in the Louvre, and wanted to see more. The Prado had dozens (probably hundreds) of Goya’s. And Velázquez. And Rubens, Van Dyck, Titian, Bosch, Brueghel (Jan, Pieter, older, younger.) Not to mention Rembrandt (some of which I saw at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam where they are on loan.) 

If you’re wondering why so much from the Low Countries, remember that Spain ruled a goodly part of the Netherlands for 150 years. They must have developed a taste.

They’re the big names. There are many others that don’t make it into the coffee table books, especially when it comes to the religious and historic stuff which the Spanish seem to have been particularly keen on. Not surprising, really. It’s still a very religious country, and they delight in dressing up in military costume old and new. There were chaps in doublet and hose with capes all over the place this evening when I walked around the squares. They might have been masons or something.

I spent the day in the Prado. It’s not exactly a delicate construction. The architecture is pretty muscular. More like a British bank than the home of the nation’s culture. Still, it’s what’s inside that counts.

I started with a stroll past a vast sweep of Gothic and Renaissance works, mostly on a grand scale. There’s a Caravaggio - one of his versions of David with the Head of Goliath. It’s in a room surrounded by works by Spanish artists who were (according to the written commentary) greatly influenced by the Italian. It’s not hard to see as much in the paintings. Lots of brutal imagery, with muscles upon muscles and variously severed limbs.

Caravaggio: David With the Head of Goliath 1600

I worked my way along to room after room of Velázquez doing his thing (never as nicely as Rembrandt, I think) and then some striking still life's, especially focussed on floral arrangements (very Spanish, apparently.) Eventually I hit the first of the Goya collection - his court paintings and images of rural life. Good, but not so good as to stand out from his peers. Rubens was next. I never expected to see so many. Apparently some of the Philips were big on his work, and could afford to pay his very high rates. I get that Ruben was a very good operator, but you get a bit sick of so many big bottoms and wrinkly bits.

Just like the Louvre, the Prado isn’t very easy to navigate. They seem to organise by period and style, but there are a lot of stairs in the way. I found the next Goya’s two floors up. A huge collection of cartoons he did for tapestries. He simplified his palette, and kept the subject matter suitable for (grand) home decor. It’s interesting to see, but I wanted something a bit more eyeball grabbing. There were some Flemish painters at the other end of that floor (down stairs then upstairs) and some interesting court treasures from France.

After a much needed espresso, I headed for the basement. Where else would you put Goya’s black paintings? I got waylaid by some fabulous alter pieces and triptychs. They went from medieval to Gothic to early Renaissance, with ever more detailed descriptions of heaven and hell. I could almost smell Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights around the corner. I was right. I’d always thought Bosch was a complete outlier, but he is contextualised in the Prado. This piece is like a trailer for the Bosch movie:

Vrancke van der Stockt: Redemption Triptych c. 1459

There were other gems, including some Brueghel (I forget which one) and Rubens double acts worth the price of admission, and some images from a 1615 parade in Brussels that would put Where’s Wally in his place.

Denis van Alsloot: The Festival of the Ommegang in Brussels: the procession of Our Lady of Sablon 1615

Finally, Goya’s black paintings. His descent into depression or madness, never intended to be shown. There are one or two which are best left alone, but the majority of the twenty or so canvases are surprisingly captivating. There’s a deep compassion here, and the technique is of an old man who has no need for gimmicks. There’s a lot in common with Rembrandt’s last few years, and Turner too. Every brush stroke seems applied at a distance. There’s no detail, just the sum of an artist’s skills projected onto the canvas. This is as good as art gets - says me.

Goya: The Dog c: 1823

A portrait found me on the way out. Painted by a Spanish artist in Paris. Not hard to see the obvious influences. Beautiful.

Raimundo de Madrazo: La modelo Aline Masson c. 1876

Gallery

If you want more detail on the pictures, you can see the Google Photos gallery here.

All images public domain

Puerta del Sol

Tapas. Lottery sellers. A woman offering me her services. Street artists being statues. Madonnas and child. Priests’ robes for sale (tempting). Paella. San Miguel. Ribbon. Lace. Baubles (35 days to Christmas). Real Casa de Correos. Football shirts. Real! Athletico! Tio Pepe. kilómetro cero. The bear and the Madrono Tree. Pork and more pork. Hola. Café con leche. Laughing children. Muchos gracias. Speedy Gonzales.

Gallery

Madrid

I’m in Madrid. I arrived this afternoon. Shortly after leaving the airport, I realised I knew absolutely nothing about this city.

Apparently everyone speaks Spanish here.

Rembrandt and Velázquez

The Rijksmuseum has an exhibition of Dutch and Spanish masters. It’s a sort of exercise in comparison. Sometimes it works, especially when the subject matter is related, and sometimes there’s a tenuous similarity in composition and the viewer is expected to make appreciative “Mmmm” noises. Still, who cares? A chance to see a whole bunch of masterpieces by dead white guys.

Wait...

I can tell you this. Rembrandt stands alone. Anybody who can paint themselves wearing this costume without drawing a round of “What does he think he is?” from the audience has to be good:

The Standard Bearer 1636 (self-portrait)

And Rembrandt is very good. He’s 250 years better than any of his contemporaries good. He’s the best “I’ll use this brush any way I choose to” artist before Turner good.

Revisiting Vincent

The first gallery I visited on my brief visit to Amsterdam three weeks ago was the Van Gogh Museum. I haven’t written about it, because I wasn’t sure I trusted my own responses.

My expectation was to be disappointed. Let’s face it, Vincent is the Elvis of art. There are probably more kitchen aprons with his Sunflowers on them than there are sunflowers in the south of France. There are enough movies about him to occupy a month of binge watching. Every household in the Western world has an object decorated with Irises. Monet might run a close second in the home decor stakes, but he made the mistake of living to a ripe old age and keeping most body parts attached. It’s a statistical fact* that no artist has more fables attached than Vincent Van Gogh. His popularity just has to be an accident of history.
* Prove me wrong.

Problem is, I loved the Van Gogh’s first time around. Despite the crowds, despite the groupies surrounding Sunflowers, despite the fact that I’d seen a lot of the pictures in an episode of Doctor bloody Who... I loved every last image. And I figured that might have been because it was the first gallery I visited on this art lover’s odysseyette through a few Western European cities. My critical faculties may have been overwhelmed.

Landscape at Twilight 1890

It’s my last day in Amsterdam. I’m off to Madrid in the morning, so I decided to revisit the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum.

Van Gogh got the same response second time around. I can’t really explain why.

Even when he does something badly, he does it badly in a way nobody else does. Here’s his portrait of Agostina Segatori (1887-8): 

Check her left hand with the cigarette. All wrong. Kwinana Senior High School schoolboy wrong. Does the portrait still reach into a man’s chest and rip his heart in two? Absolutely.

I may have to start listening to Elvis Presley.

My dutiful laundrette

The lovely Autumn weather gave way to a cold, wet, windy day. I ventured as far as the neighbourhood laundrette to do my domestic duties. I had the place almost to myself.

I quite look forward to domestic challenges. Not having been in a laundrette for 25 years, I was wondering how I’d fare with making things work. I expected Google Translate to get a workout, but thankfully, a set of English instructions was on the wall. The days of coins in slots are gone - it’s a central console where you add credit to control various machines and dispensers.

The view through the shopfront was nondescript enough, but when I glanced out a side window, I could only have been in Amsterdam: