Gary Kirkpatrick

Artist and travel blogger.

Sketches from England

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We stayed at a friend’s house in this small town in England near Cambridge, where they filmed episodes of Inspector Morse, a popular British detective show from the 1980’s or 90’s. It was a farm house converted to a residence, with much charm. It was heated by the huge kitchen stove with water circulating to both floors. Outside a fox would visit, looking for a meal of old cat whom we were there to care for. Our friends were off for a long trip to southeast Asia, gone for the month. We had use of their car, which we used to get to the train for the trip into London, which allowed us to see a few plays and see the museums again.

view from window in the Heath

old farm house pen ink watercolor
House in Flackwell Heath, water color and ink
old farm house left side flackwell
House in Flackwell Heath, ink
egyptian two figures
At the British Museum, watercolor and ink
egyptian woman dance
Woman Dances, based on Egyptian statue at British Museum

The Screams- Solitary Confinement in Lithuania

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acrylics on paper, 11.7 x 16.5", A4 30 x 42 cm
Solitary Confined- The Screams. acrylics on paper, 11.7 x 16.5″, A4 30 x 42 cm

The Screams- Solitary Confinement in Lithuania was done during our visit to Lithuhania. This scene is from the Gestapo/Soviet detention and torture facility. This nightmare is the solitary confinement chamber just barely bog enough for one person and was probable kept very dark. It’s torture without leaving a mark on your body.

I write more about it here: http://garyjkirkpatrick.com/the-specter-of-russia/

Clochina (Valencia mussels): a special treat

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When the local local mussels are in, Valencianos dig in!  Called ‘Clóchinas, they are smaller than most of the also excellent mussels we get all year long from Galicia.  They can be a bit saltier than the Galician variety, farmed in the fjords of that province, as they grow in saltier water and on the Mediterranean versus the Atlantic Ocean.

Its cultivation started in the late nineteenth century on two rafts in the port of Valencia.   Now they are grown farther out as the port has grown.  There is a current that keeps the farm waters clean.  They hang onto ropes slung from the sides of old barges, similar to how it is done in Galicia.  

They are prepared very simply, usually with just some garlic cloves in the steamer, with lemon juice squeezed over the cooked clóchinas.  There is no need to add salt.  

 

 

 

 

44,000 year old cave paintings

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December 18, 2019

The oldest form of communication that reaches us from ancient man comes from artists.  The oldest drawing, found on a rock in South Africa last year, is some 73,000 years old.  In Germany there is a 40,000-year-old sculpture of a human with lion’s head.  In France, a 14,000- to 21,000-year old mural depicts a figure fighting a bison, with the faces sporting a beak.

A new discovery extends narrative cave painting back 44,000 years.  In caves on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia, archaeologists discovered a painting of a hunt or ritual.  There are two wild pigs and four dwarf buffaloes chased by  mythical human-animal figures hunting with rope- and spear-like weapons.  They are not just individual pieces as in older discoveries but tell a story.   If the age of the paintings is confirmed independently, these become the oldest known narrative cave paintings. 

 

Screenshot from 2019-12-17 09:17:46

 

 

Screenshot from 2019-12-17 09:16:20

 

 

Screenshot from 2019-12-17 08:20:50

 

Screenshot from 2019-12-17 08:19:35

 

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs6DVTSOEOw[/embedyt]

For further reading, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/newly-discovered-indonesian-cave-art-may-represent-worlds-oldest-known-hunting-scene-180973761/

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/cave-painting-indonesia-sulawesi-age-archaeologists-griffith-university-a9243331.html

 

Screenshot from 2019-12-17 09:17:46

Sophonisba Anguisciola and Livinia Fontana, 16th c. Italian Painters

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December 2019

These two women are currently exhibited at El Prado in Madrid, which I attended recently.  It is a large collection.  Unfortunately they do not allow photos.  You can see a few more at their website El Prado expos.

Lavinia Fontana (1552 – 1614) was trained by her father Prospero Fontana of the well known School of Bologna.  She worked in Bologna and Rome. She relied on commissions for her income, difficult for anyone, more so for a woman.  She was perhaps the first woman to do so.  It allowed her to support her agent husband and their eleven children.   She painted female nudes, also perhaps a first for women.  

 

She began her commercial practice by painting small devotional paintings on copper.   Christ with the Symbols of the Passion (1576 age 24) , is now in the El Paso Museum of Art.  By the 1580s she was well known as a portrait painter in Bologna, often developing close friendships with her paying subjects.  She moved on to large religious and mythological works where in another likely first she included female nudes.

 

Self-Portrait at the Clavichord with a Servant, 1577 considered her masterpiece

 

Pope Clement VIII invited her to Rome in 1603.  The family moved with her.  She became the portrait painter,  painting Pope Paul V among others. 

 

Lavinia Fontana, Minerva Dressing, 1613, now in the Borghese Palace

 

I have written previously of the next painter.  See Sophonisba

 

Three Sisters Playing Chess
Three Sisters Playing Chess, Sofonisba’s masterpiece

 

Bolivian Dance at Midnight

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December 14, 2019

 

It was a bit past midnight.   We were on the way home from the theater, passing through Parque Turia, when we came across this group doing some worship dancing. There is an impromptu shrine to Mary in front of which they dance.

 

Bolivian folk dance

There were perhaps 100 people in the crowd.  Children were running about like it was afternoon.  People were laughing, watching the dance, clapping, chatting.