Wine Society - maps of wine areas, wine aromas set, Rothschild bottle labels by famous artists, free tasting

 It costs forty pounds a year to join, and you get free delivery on their wines.

The showroom in Stevenage is a fun place.

A free tasting of a wine they are promoting.

Light fittings featuring upside down wine glasses.

Events listed on the notice board.

The Vintage Room. Has a poster of the Rothchild wine labels designed by famous artists such as Dali and Picasso.

The glass reveals the spiral staircase down to a wine cellar. Fascinating for adults and children.

Wine aromas set.

Maps of wine areas. Photos by Angela Lansbury

 

Don Quixote and Cervantes: Sights To See, Films To See and Music To Hear

The humorous hero of Spain and the Spanish speaking world is Don Quixote and English speakers can quote or at least recognize the proverb Faint Heart Ne'er Won Fair Lady and the phrase Tilting at Windmills. We also have the adjective quixotic.

As you might expect, Spain has several sites associated with Cervantes. Places with the name Cervantes are in Spain and even a town north of Perth in Australia.

His novels have influenced or inspired other writers, painters and musicians. I shall pick out just the most popular or memorable names.

Numerous musicians found the chacter of Quixote handy for opera, musicals and different kinds of music. Felix Mendelssohn. Massenet.

Painters such as Picasso and Salvador Dali were insipred.

In Spain you can see Cervantes birthplace, a museum, and several statues.

Statue of Cervantes in La Mancha, Spain.

Useful Websites For Armchair Travellers

Don Quixote
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Quixote

Cervantes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Cervantes

Quotations from Cervantes
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Cervantes#/media/File:Quijote-argamasilla.jpg

Spain
https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Spain

Previous post on Don Quixote and author Cervantes
https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2020/04/don-quixote-and-cervantes-immortalised.html

About the Author
Angela Lansbury is a travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Picasso At Tate Modern Overlooking London's Thames River and Picasso worldwide

Problem
A Picasso exhibition is at the Tate Modern in London. What will it cost? Do I need to queue? (Americans would say line up), can I eat at The Tate, and what else could I do in the area? If I am not even keen on Picasso, should I accept an invitation to go and see it? Where else can I see Picassos? What else can I see in London?

Answers
Before reading all the comments and reviews in assorted newspaper, it would be a good idea to look straight at the website of the Tate to see what their experts have to say.

The exhibition features Picasso's prolific output of paintings in the year 1932. He was fifty years old. He lived  (25 October 1881 in Málaga, Spain – 8 April 1973). In 1932 he was juggling between his wife Olga, their 10-year-old-son and his girlfriend, Marie-Therese Walter, his much younger girlfriend, 28 years younger, and his muse who sat for paintings.

Marie-Therese? The French Catholics call girls Marie, after the Virgin Mary,  and hyphenate it with another name, as in the magazine Marie-Claire. Marie-Therese might strike you as a long name, if you are used to English language speakers who are happy with plain Mary. However, her name is nothing compared to the length of Picasso's own full name, so long that I can't even type it from memory but would have to copy it.

If you are interested in art, it's no good getting hoity-toity about the private lives of artists. What I find interesting is that so many of them were not untrained at all. Picasso's parents had an artist background. His father was a painter. (Lowry went to art school.) They hung out with other artists.

If you want to buy reproductions of Picasso paintings, you will find postcards, prints and books at Tate. I find the building, inside and out, rather austere.

Once inside, however, you get good views over the more charming buildings of Lodnon looking out from the Tate Modern over the bridge across the River Thames to landmarks. Try plotting them in advance of your visit, perhaps printing out a map to check them off. Any big hotel is likely to have free maps of London.

Where to see Picasso's Paintings

UK
Exhibition at Tate Modern, Bankside, London, SE1 9TG, England.
The postcode is handily easy to remember TG which also stands for Tate Gallery.

If you have a tripod and flash you cannot use them and may be asked to check them in. Is there any point taking your heavy camera equipment, if you can't use it? Yes, because you might want to take some shots of the river Thames and landmarks.

FRANCE
Museé Picasso, Paris, France

SPAIN
Museu Picasso, Barcelona, Spain
Museo Picasso, Malaga, Spain

Picasso's Guernica in Spain. Photo by Joaquin in Wikipedia's numerous editions in various languages.

USA
Numerous galleries including:
NEW YORK
(Solomon) Guggenheim Museum, Manhattan, New York
Metropolitan Museum of Art
OHIO
Cleveland, Ohio
WASHINGTON DC
National Gallery of Art

Other artists' art in London, England:
National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, London.
National Portrait Gallery, behind the National Gallery, London.
Free exhibition of Victorian paintings in the upstairs gallery at The Guildhall. (see my previous posts.)
Heath Robinson exhibition of cartoons in a house containing a ground floor restaurant beside the lake in the pretty park in Pinner. (Walk through the park opposite Pinner station on the Metropolitan line from Baker Street.)

Useful websites
http://www.tate.org.uk/press/press-releases/tate-modern-stage-landmark-picasso-exhibition-spring-2018
http://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern/cafe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso

Lists and Pictures of Hidden Paintings, Painters, Galleries To Visit, and Researchers: Brontes to Mona Lisa and Picasso

The Brontë Sisters by Patrick Branwell, their brother, in 1834. He sketched himself, then covered his face with the painting of a pillar. To see it go to The National Portrait Gallery, London, England, UK. The Gallery is easy to reach, just behind Trafalgar Square and near an underground 'tube' station.

Branwell is not the only artist who may have started to paint himself and then decided against it. Another is Rembrandt, whose supposed portrait was found under Old Man In Miliary Costume in the Getty Museum, Southern California, USA.

Old Man in Military Costume, in Getty Museum, Southern California, USA. Picture in public domain from Wikipedia.

Problem
Which painting has one hidden underneath, which gallery can I visit to see it, and which researchers at other galleries near me or places I might visit have researched and made comments on this?

It can get quite confusing. Painters move from one place to another. The Mona Lisa is in Paris, France but Leonardo da Vinci painted it of a woman in Florence, Italy.

I have made myself this list so that I can plan a holiday to see one of these paintings, or see one of these paintings whilst I am on a holiday or business trips to one of these countries and ask if one of the speakers on the subject is on video or at the gallery so I can speak to them. I thought you would also be interested so you can do the same.

It takes a lot of time to track down every painting and its gallery. I've already spent four house, so I've put it up online for you to read but there's more to add so come back later to see if I've added anything else. By dividing it up this way it's easier to find the current location of a painting, and its history on the internet.

Mona Lisa. To see it visit Museé de Louvre, Paris, France. Another lady is painted behind her.

Painters (Alphabetically by artist)
Branwell, Patrick, (The Brontë Sisters. London, UK.)
Degas, Edgar. (Portrait of Femme. Art Institute of Chicago. USA)
Goya, Francisco de
Leonardo da Vinci. (Mona Lisa, France; Sforza Castle museum, Milan, Italy.)
Picasso, Pablo
Seurat, Georges-Pierre (Courtauld Institute of Art, London, England.)

Paintings (Alphabetically by subject)
Brontë Sisters (1834) with sketch of painter, brother Branwell, hidden behind overpainted pillar.
Dobigny, Emma (Degas painting).
Mona Lisa, France.

Painting Name
The Brontë Sisters. UK.
Crouching Woman. (La Misereuse Accroupie by Picasso. Blue Period. Germany)
Mona Lisa. (La Jioconda in Italian by Leonardo da Vinci.) France.
Portrait Of A Woman. (Portrait de Femme by Degas. Chicago.)

Galleries And Museums To Visit, by country and continent.
Courtauld Institite of Art, London, England.
The Louvre, Paris, France. (Mona Lisa.) Europe.
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia. (Degas.)
The National Portrait Gallery, London, England, UK. (Brontë Sisters.) Europe.
The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Holland, The Netherlands. Europe.
Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany. Europe. (Picasso.)
Sforza Castle museum, Milan, Italy. (Leonardo Da Vinci.)

In the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, England, Seurat's picture shows a seated women. Behind her on the wall is a vase of flowers. It was originally a mirror showing Seurat watching the model, (rather like the painting of Las Meninas, with the royal family, and the painter at the back, and the Arnolfini marriage). However Seurat's picture did not show royalty, or even a marrried couple but the woman who was his secret mistress, Madeline Knoblock. (Her suranme has unfortunate humorous  associations in English.) Having second thoughts, to avoid scandal, Seurat painted himself out of the picture. You might not know this painting, but if you know about art, you will recognize the term pointillisem, and you'll probably lean forward when you see his other better known paintings, The Bathers, featuring a rather round-shouldered boy, and Sunday afternoon on the grass, a jolly crowd.

I have mentioned Europe in case any travellers such as the British or Americans or Europeans or Asians as individual or groups want to do a multi-centre art tour of Europe.

A painting by Leonardo Da Vinci, showing trees, was discovered under twenty layers of whitewash inside Sforza castle in Milan, Northen Italy. Yes, you can visit the castle, which is a museum. Also see their website for details of the painting and opening hours. The website also has a video, although I could not get it to play the day I tried.

Places To Visit (alphabetically by country)
Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (Degas).
France, Paris, The Louvre (Mona Lisa).
Germany, Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart. (Picasso, Crouching Woman.)
Italy, Sforza Castle museum, Milan. (Painted over mural by da Vinci discovered.)
The Netherlands, Amsterdam, Holland, The Rijksmuseum.
UK - London, England, National Portrait Gallery. (The Brontë Sisters by brother Patrick.)
UK - National Gallery, London (Woman At A Window by Palma Vecchio.) By the Portrait Gallery.
USA - Art Institute of Chicago. (Degas. Portrait of a Woman.)
USA - Getty Museum, S California. (Old Man In Military Costume. Rembrandt.)
USA - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. (Madame X by John Singer Sargent.)

Magazines and Journals

Method of Investigation
Australian Synchroton
x-ray

Researchers of Art (Art historians and gallery officials)
Kenneth Brummel, curator, Art Institute of Chicago, USA.
Dr Daryl Howard, National Gallery of Victoria, Australia.
Michael Varcoe-Cocks, National Gallery of Victoria, Australia.

Scientific Methods
Producers, sellers or distributors of methods for seeing what's underneath
Australian Synchroton

Website Stories
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-15018174
https://artlawandmore.com/2015/12/21/london-national-portrait-gallery-to-find-out-true-story-behind-bronte-sisters-portrait/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/12057053/National-Portrait-Gallery-to-reveal-mysteries-of-shadowy-Bronte-brother.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/13/russia-malevich-black-square-hidden-paintings
https://www.tretyakovgallery.ru/en/for-visitors/museums/novaya-tretyakovka/
https://listverse.com/2016/03/06/10-hidden-images-discovered-beneath-famous-classic-paintings/
https://www.milanocastello.it/en (Sforza castle.)
http://blog.courtauld.ac.uk/gallery/2014/03/28/seurats-secret-self-portrait-2/
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/research/woman-at-a-window
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/12127 (A rather censored account.)

If you Google the words hidden paintings you will come up with the stories. In Wikipedia I tried typing hidden paintings and found nothing, but when I went to the Brontë page, I came straight to the story and the picture of The Brontë Sisters. Wikipedia is a good place to go to find public domain pictures and discussion about whether a picture is in public domain, why and in which country.

I went from 10 hidden images, which reveals all the racy details, to the art galleries' websites, which sound more like family reading. For example, the Met describing Singer Sergant's portrait, Madame X, of Madame Pierre Gautreau, says she was born in Louisiana, which sounds very factual. The other website describes her strap falling off her shoulder in the original of the picture and specified she went to Paris from New Orleans, a detail which has altogether more exciting connotations. I have been to New Orleans, which has a lively night life.

I loved the side by side pictures of the earlier and repainted version of the woman at the window.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
If you know of any more, please let me know. My two previous posts are on the same subject. You can find me on Facebook or leave a comment on this article. If you ever need a talk on this subject, or wish to quote me, please get in touch. Meanwhile, please share links to your favourite posts.

More murals, in Norway and learn Norwegian

Norway has murals designed by Picasso on the outside of buildings in Oslo.

You can also see a Picasso Museum in Paris, France.
If you want to learn Norwegian, you can do it for free on Duolingo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picasso%27s_Regjeringskvartalet_murals

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Picasso Museum Opens In Paris

"Good artists copy. Great artists steal." So said Picasso. (For more quotations see Brainyquote.com)

Pablo Picasso was born 25 Oct 1881 and his museum in Paris has opened 25 Oct 2014 in Paris. After five years of renovations.

Picasso is famous for his blue faces with odd angled noses and for his large painting Guernica (displayed at Reina Sofia museum in Madrid, Spain), a political statement about the horrors of war. I read somewhere that he said he painted all in blue because he had run out of other paints.

Make of that what you will. You might think that I have mis-remembered. That myths grow up to account for anything. That he was joking. And the reporter had no sense of humour. That Picasso was honest. Went from rags to riches. That a true artist can make and beautify from anything. That necessity is the mother of invention. That a poor artist today can hope to one day become as famous and successful and appreciated as Picasso.

If you want to read about the importance of Picasso and his painting Les Demoiselles D'Avignon and cubism go to the site
http://www.pablopicasso.org

But Picasso painted many more pictures, extremely colourful. With beautiful swirly curly shapes. He  presented new ways of seeing faces, people and landscapes.

The Paris museum had been closed for five years for renovation so as a tourist I had forgotten it. The museum is huge. It contains sculptures, pottery, also artworks Picasso collected from other artists who were his friends.

If you can't get to Paris right away, put it on your wish list. If you are in London, England, see the Rembrandt exhibition. If you are in Spain you can visit the Picasso museum in Barcelona. Other works by Picasso can be seen in art galleries in New York and other US cities. You can get an idea of where from the pictures in Wikipedia. Somebody has done all the research for an article in the uk's Telegraph newspaper.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/france/11184945/Picasso-Where-to-see-his-works-around-Europe.html


Beautiful pictures on the BBC website.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-29758658

What of Picasso's life? His name is Spanish and he was born in Spain, in Malaga, but spent most of his adult life in France and died over dinner and was buried in France.

Wikipedia has a fascinating account of Picasso and WWI and WWII and the Spanish Civil war and his relationship with other artists such as Dali and communism.

Picasso's Death Over Dinner in France
Picasso lived to the age of 91 and died over dinner. (8 April 1973). His wife was devastated and later shot herself. On a happier note, better to die over dinner with family and friends than a lot of other ways, in fact most other ways. And better to die, world famous, at 91 (still able to get around at home) than unknown and all the other years up to 91.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso

Les Demoiselles D'Avignon

USA

From Wikipedia 

(See full details in Wikipedia.)

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