I should have suspected it: when something looks too new for its style, Romanesque in this case, it’s probably neo-idem. This nice church made of masonry and funnel arches made of brick is actually mid-19th century, more Neoclassic than revival, although Francisco Enríquez knew the Alhambra well

And more #PublicDomain books I've got Google to release from 'snippet view': Maps and Plans in the Public Record Office: books.google.co.uk/books?id=zys... Sample Census 1966 books.google.co.uk/books?id=fyo... Consolidated list of Govt publications, 1925: books.google.co.uk/books?id=cyd...

This iconography of Neptune using a dolphin’s tail as underwear is really original; it was created by one of the Perolli brothers, Genovese artists hired for the Marquise of Santa Cruz Palace, to honor him. This part of the stair is all about Fortune, but helping only the virtuous. Like him.

The military order of Calatrava was founded by Cister monks, ascetic, rigorous. This shows in the gothic tracery of this church of the castle in Calatrava la Nueva. Which has some interesting stuff: swallow’s nest vaults (check out the shape of the bricks) and volcanic tuff as building material

Portrait of his daughter Anna Catharina in 1635. Still wearing a bell in case she wanders off! By my colleague Jacob Jordaens, whose day is today.

Way back in 2021, something was already smelling fishy in the Plus Ultra rescue, and everyone in Spain knew that x.com/lugaricano/s... Zapatero being accused is the proverbial tip of the iceberg. An iceberg that has already a former minister in jail. Former minister _of this sitting president_

Prof. Pedro Rueda received a Nottebohm scholarship to research the #EarlyModern trade in movable type between #Antwerp, Seville and Spanish America. He focused on the bookseller Tomás López de Haro, who had connections in Leiden, Antwerp and Seville. #bookhistory

I didn’t particularly enjoy today’s Baroque lessons. We devoted an inordinate amount of time to Frans Hals, which is OK, but took as much time as Vermeer or double Artemisia Gentileschi. He was a good painter, fast and efficient, and he created some very nice paintings like this Babbe Malle

english.elpais.com/spain/2026-0... Who would have thought that the buddy of dictators like Maduro would also be getting kickbacks on the side?

Ex-premier Zapatero, accusato di riciclaggio tg24.sky.it/mondo/2026/0... Chi penserebbe che l’amico di tiranni sarebbe anche un corrutto?

Ovid’s Metamorphoses are a popular source of inspiration for painting and frescoes; their sometimes lurid imagery is usually a front for moral lessons. These can be somewhat obscure, though, even more so when they are part of an cycle inscribed in a iconographical program like these.

This documents that all the official Russian reasons for the escalation in 2022 - the "NATO threat", "de-nazification", "protection of the Russian speakers", "satanism", "biolab", etc etc -is bullshit. They are waging war to steal other peoples land and resources. Colonialism. Imperialism. Fascism👇

Save this thread👇 i'll provide a new entry every other day. And if you have some opinions, I would love to hear from you!

It seems Donald's plan of helping Russia win will not be as consequence free for the USA as he hoped.

Guterres has lost all credibility as head of the UN and should resign immediately. In his tweet, he fails to mention that #Russia is responsible for this war crime, even when the video evidence is published directly from Russian channels. @Guterres: Your hands are stained with blood. Shame on you!

These are the nice stuff you find off the beaten track in Granada, where a bunch of modernist architects captured the language of the Nasrid monuments like the Alhambra; the “ajimez” or bifora on the first floor is right up that alley. The arched windows follow the same style, as do the brick walls

Another reredos from our trip yesterday to Priego de Córdoba, also in the Asunción church. It’s an early Baroque piece, well ordered, decoration limited to some polychromy, Ionic columns… almost Renaissance if it were not for the small hierarchy created by the framing of the side aisles.

A new Nuremberg tribunal is now being created. #Russia will go to trial, eventually. For the Ukrainians, it is a great victory. While Russia is carrying out massive attacks against civilians, others are preparing for what will happen the day the war is over. @news.dw.com #Ukraine #Europe

Arabesque II by František Kupka, 1925 https://botfrens.com/collections/212/contents/137807

Today, class trip to Priego de Córdoba, to check out all the different kinds of Baroque there is, from early through middle to late transitional Baroque. This Sagrario of the Asunción church was one of the highlights, and you can get why. It’s one of the main rococó chapels in Spain

I took this picture of Alonso Cano’s Saint Joseph while trying to dodge guards since it’s totally forbidden to take pictures at the Prado and any exhibition in it, like this one. The exhibition was about painting and sculptures hand in hand. And it’s only fitting that Alonso Cano was there

Finished the last one (on the bull’s head rhyton botched reconstruction by Arthur Evan’s, if you’re interested) I need to get going on this new portfolio of Spanish pieces from the 16-18th century. I chose this one for the 17th century, San Antonio de los Alemanes, in Madrid

Eyes for Eyes (@tmariis.bsky.social)

Today we have finished Rubens in the Baroque class. Peter Paul Rubens was a true entrepreneur with a whole workshop working for him, including painters specialized in birds or in landscape. But the minimum requirement for “a Rubens” was that he created the original design. It mostly worked

This is one of the pieces I had to explain yesterday for class credits. Tobias and Saint Raphael by Domenico Parodi, a Genoese painter from the early 18th century. Bought for San Lorenzo Mártir, a church in Cádiz, and a very interesting one at that, a meeting point with the Genoese community

You probably don’t know anything at all about Phoenician (or Carthaginian art). I don’t. But if you’re curious about it, you can do no better than go to the museum in Cádiz, where there’s an amazing collection of findings that go way back, as it’s been possibly the oldest continuous city in Europe

Today the History of Modern Art in Spain class was about late Baroque architecture, and included a bit about the façade of our cathedral in Granada. I took this picture just yesterday… and I hadn’t “seen” anything mentioned in the lesson. I knew it was Baroque in a general way, but no specifics.

Mary, with dog, interrupted from reading by v. agitated flying angel. Dog, not liking this, hides behind her lectern. Annunciation as perspective demonstration, 1555, by Paris Bordone, born OTD in 1500.

This colorful icon represents the Anastasis, which means resurrection, or rather the apocryphal event after resurrection when Christ went to the Limbo of the Patriarchs to get them back. Maybe a bit too late for the guy on the bottom. Look how it is a cutout, since Orthodox shuns 3D statues

Klimt locks rooftops and water together in Houses at Unterach on the Attersee (1916). By turning the village into a shimmering, geometric grid, he flattens the landscape into a stack of colorful blocks that blur the line between nature and architecture.

I need to talk about a painting like this one next Saturday in a class outing, same topic, Tobias and the archangel Raphael, not to mention the fish. This one is by Tiziano, which is way better than the one I need to talk about, by a late Baroque Genoese painter called Domenico Parodi

Today we have seen this very painter in Baroque Art, and his speciality in “wunderkammer” as one of the many specialities of the Flemish/Dutch Baroque

Sebastian Leerse, his family, his pets, & some highlights of his art collection. Do I see the oil sketch for my Samson & Delilah on the left wall? Painted in 1628 by Frans Francken, whose day is today.

Thinking of my old pal Jan, who would have been so thrilled at Venezia being back in Serie A!

Actually, he was successful… for a time oldmasters.academy/rembrandts-f.... After an economic crisis hit the Netherlands, he went into bankruptcy, selling his extensive possessions for far less than was needed. The next self-portraits show not a confident or wealthy person, but a weary, tired one.

But the serenity in the face is probably the most telltale sign. He’s not mentally adding up how much it needs to meet wages this month, but counting the days left until he can afford a third chain. It’s a rosy, healthy faced; only the eyes reveal an extraordinary acumen. Hosted at the Gulbenkian

Today we took the last lessons of the semester, and this included learning a bit about the social history of art, including historians such as Svetlana Alpers. She singled out Rembrandt’s workshop as a showcase of artistic talent meets entrepreneurship, and how one can’t understand one w/o the other

The painting is entitled “Self-portrait wearing beret and two chains”, we should assume that by Rembrandt with the help of the workshop, and it’s probably a good example of what Svetlana was trying to transmit. It represents a pretty successful business person who can afford not one, but two chains

I’ve just read (in “The secret lives of colors”, if you want to know) that Rembrandt created his blacks by mixing whatever was left in his palette. He must have have an amazing amount of colors, because with just black and browns he’s able to create volume and depth and, or course, mood.

I have just finished a book on Rembrandt, so I could just as well post something from my collection. This is “The entombment”in the small Hunterian Museum in Glasgow, which you should totally visit. From far apart, the yellow-brown circle of light is the first thing that draws your attention.

New exhibitions in Oslo this month: Edvard Munch and the Chocolate Factory at the Munch Museum Asta Nørregaard at the National Museum These shows and lots more round Britain and Europe in our May round-up: art-exhibitions.blogspot.com/2026/04/new-...

NetHack 5.0.0 ya esta disponible para jugar en laberintos de modo texto contra monstruos ASCII | #juegos | por @alvy.bsky.social www.microsiervos.com/archivo/jueg...

I bumped into this Saint Michael today. You can find him in San Juan de Dios, a beautiful Baroque church devoted to the namesake Saint, who created a religious order, the “Hospitalarios”, who have dignified the treatment of hospitalized people since then. This Saint Michael is fighting evil-sickness

Love Venice & need a wonderful book to read? Dream of Venice Book Shop bookshop.org/shop/dreamof... via @bookshop.org with authors: @davidhewson.com @essiefox.bsky.social and translators: @gregorydowling.bsky.social @scribedoll.bsky.social #Venice #Venezia #VeniceBooks #Booksky

Imagine you are an architect or interior decorator and you are commissioned for building an whole chapel in a room. It’s a tall order, because you have to cram everything in a “praying machine” into a space of a few square meters. Check out this Orthodox chapel in the Brussels airport

Also from Heraklion, inside Saint Titus, a church whose current form comes from the 19th century, this icon representing Saint Marina as it reads, full name Saint Marina of Antioch for the Eastern church or Saint Margaret for the other confessions. In the painting, scenes from her life

This late 18th-century karasuo or atsuta style Noh theatre robe, is held in the collection of the Musée Guimet.. Crafted from a combination of silk and gold thread, the garment has a deep blue ground overlaid with a bold, vertical tate-waku (rising steam) pattern executed in heavy gold brocade.

An exhibition about Dutch and Flemish women artists in the long 18th century proves that, ‘contrary to modern-day belief, in their own time these women were neither rare, nor underappreciated, nor toiling away in obscurity’, says Lucy Davies

For some unfathomable reason, Santa Maria del Giglio bears in its façade the bas-reliefs of several Venetian fortresses such as this one, Candia, which of course, is nowadays Heraklion in Crete. Check out the hexagon-like bulwark in the lower left corner, which guards the entrance to the harbour