Gary J. Kirkpatrick Art and Travel Blog
Expressionistic art
There’s an open air museum just outside Lublin containing houses, churches, barns and some bee hive structures unlike any I’ve ever seen before. Here are some pen and ink drawings from that visit. The setting is bucolic, with sloping meadows, wooden buildings on hilltops, a lake, a stream. You have a good view into the rural life style of area residents between 1800 and 1930. Some drawings and a water color from the museum:
June 15, 2018
We climbed Wawel Hill today, as people have been doing for the last 50,000 years. Only since circa 1000, however, has this climb served to gain the entrance to the castle. Now it’s a museum (1931), sitting in a complex of structures including the Royal Cathedral, atop the modest hill overlooking the Vistula River.
Today there are ten collections, including important Italian Renaissance paintings, prints, sculptures and textiles, including the Sigismund II Augustus tapestry collection, gold, Oriental art including Ottoman tents, armor, ceramics, Meissen porcelain, as well as period furniture. There are specialized conservation studios, making it a significant restoration center.
Krakow is replete with finely preserved notable architecture. The Rynek Glowny (Main Square) is in the center of the old town (Stare Miasto). Sukiennice (The Cloth Hall, 1400) is a fine example of the Renaissance. The Cloth Hall was a center for the export of salt (there is a huge salt mine nearby), textiles and lead and the import of spices, silk, leather and wax. The Rynek Glowey is normally full of visitors, horse drawn carriages, and outdoor seating at the many restaurants.
A short distance away is St Mary’s Basilica is late Gothic church with two unmatched spires at 80 m (260′). One was originally a city watch tower. The Basilica’s foundations date to the early 13th century. The church has a famous wooden altar piece by Veit Stross (Wit Stwosz). Every hour a trumpet plays from taller tower, the former watch tower. It commemorates the 13th c. trumpeter shot in the throat while sounding the alarm before a Mongol attack on the city. The noon hejnał is broadcast Polish national Radio 1 Station.
The Royal Cathedral is another Gothic structure dating from 1100. Pope John Paul II gave his first performance as a priest here in 1946.
The Church of St. Adalbert, which is one of the few remaining examples of the Polish Romanesque style in Krakow, and the oldest Christian chapel in the city to boot.
The pointed arches show the Gothic character of the Collegium Maius
The Barbican is a fortifcation once connected to the city walls just behind it.
The Church of St Peter and Paul is Baroque in style.
Polish food has long since been a part of American cuisine, even if a small part. Who has not had kielbasa sausage or dill pickles. Polish cuisine is a calorie and fat rich cuisine, heavy on pork, chicken and beef to a lesser extent. Cabbage is a major item — there were three types of cabbage served with the huge platter we shared on our first night. They use a lot of cream and eggs, as well as grains. Bigos is a hearty stew made of finely chopped meats sauerkraut and cabbage. Pirogi are a major feature, stuffed noodles or rolled pancakes– I had one stuffed with cheese and spinach. You can get a variety of pretzel (but soft) in food carts and bakeries everywhere. Sour dough breads are common, including its use in soups. In the main square there are booths. At one we tried a grilled smoke cheese with cherry jam. It was excellent!
A small place open just for lunch is called Lunch- that’s right, Lunch. We noticed that locals were piling in so figured it was probably both good and a good value, and it was indeed. This meal plus a beer and coke was just $15.00, and either would have been enough for two people. The pirogi had a potato pancake on top and another on the bottom.
Goulash was borrowed from the Hungarians, becoming an integral part of the cuisine.
I have my doubts about spinach as a traditional ingredient.
I’ll have more to add as we go.
Krakow sits on the banks of the Vistula. Settlement dates from the 7th century, finding Wawel hill a defensible position. and has long been a major center of Polish culture and economy. It was a member of the Hanseatic league despite not being coastal and thus had its own fleet during that period (circa 1000-1500). It was the capitol of Poland from 1038-1569, when Wawel Castle
castle burned, after which the capital was moved to Warsaw. It was capitol again during the Nazi era. In 1978, Karol Wojtyła became Pope John Paul II, the first non-Italian in 455 years. Auschwitz is close by, and Schindler had his factory here, which is now a museum. Its current population is 760,000, with a total regional population of 8 million. On our first day it seemed like a few million children were taking a field drip to the city, long lines of them being moved about by teachers trying to show them the town.
https://garyjkirkpatrick.com/krakow/Wawel Castle at nightKrakow means “town of Krakus,” a legendary ruler of the country. The area’s first named inhabitants, the Vistulian tribe (700 CE), gave the river its name. However, there is evidence of habitation dating well before, to 50,000 years. Wawel Castle, now a fine arts museum, was built circa 1350 and much renovated in the 16th century, when King Sigusmund brought in Italian architects, German decorators as well as local craftsmen.
In 1364 Casimir III founded the University of Krakow, the second oldest in central Europe after Charles University in Prague. By the 15th century the city had entered its golden age, whence the examples of Polish Renaissance architecture. The architecture includes fine examples of Gothic, Renaissance and the Baroque.
A friend posted this.
It turns out that traveling makes us far happier than any material wealth ever does
Video slide show from Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.
Video of visits to expositions in Paris, set to a chevalier song.
“Loving Vincent” is a flick about Vincent Van Gogh made entirely of paintings done in his thick paint, swirly, expressive style. There are 65,000 paintings in all, each done on glass plates. The plates were first placed before the filmed of the costumed cast members, reducing drawing time dramatically, and making it possible to make this movie with just 125 and not, say, the 10,000 artists it would have taken to cover an area the size of London or Manhattan if each plate were laid out in the original size. All this adds up to an unusual experience and a total immersion in the visual world of the artist. But there’s more.
The film could have suffered significantly from the flaw that plagues musicals, whose stories often serve as an excuse for the next number. Loving Vincent’s story line, however, is not so thin. Its basis is writing that challenges the initial contention that Van Gogh committed suicide.
The movie opens with the postman possessing a returned letter addressed to Vincent’s brother Theo. He recruits his son Armand to hand deliver the letter. Armand soon finds that Theo is dead, so he looks for an alternative. The film is a series of interviews of the people who knew Vincent, all portrait subjects, interviews that further what turns into an investigation of the death of the artist. As things unfold we are provided a picture of the life of Vincent as well as his death, some interviewees corroborating the suicide theory, while others leave us doubting that verdict.
Several issues emerge that lead us to question the suicide conclusion. Having pulled that trigger you would have left black powder marks on your clothes and hands, and the accounts show conflicts in that regard. Also we are told of the persistent ridicule and bullying by town youths, any one of which could have had motive, perhaps even the one who later confessed to mistreating Vincent in his youth. Then there is Vincent’s state of mind. “Loving Vincent” is what Van Gogh wrote in each of his letters to his brother Theo, with whom he had a close relationship. Thus Vincent was not entirely alone and unloved by family, and he was close to some of the interviewees as well.
There are several other observations of interest. First, Vincent wrote, “I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say: he feels deeply, he feels tenderly.” Are those the sentiments of someone who would end his own life? Perhaps but perhaps not. Second, Vincent’s lack of commercial success could certainly contribute to his perception of self-worth. However Monet, the most famous of painters, had recently highly praised Vincent’s art, and Vincent sold a painting, his first. Third there is the odd location and angle of the lethal wound. People who attempt suicide with a gun usually go for the head not the stomach. None of these observations are conclusive of course, but there is certainly enough to cloud the official verdict, and to give substance to what would otherwise be an art slide show with an excuse for a story.
The colored images flicker in a way that other animations I have seen do not, adding an element of visual intrigue to that surrounding conflicting images of Vincent’s life and death. They also add an element of brain fatigue. Fortunately the flash backs in black and white give much-needed rest for the eyes.
This is a unique film about a unique man making unique art. Check it out – and stay through the credits. You’ll be treated to Lianne La Havas’s deep toned charming rendition of Starry Starry Night.
Rotten Tomatoes reviews Robert Kodger review Tim Brayton review Vanity Fair: The Van Gogh Mystery
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A friend and I went to Auvers-sur-Oise, which is not too far from Paris. It is here that Vincent Van Gogh lived his last months. While he lived in this town Van Gogh did a painting of the church, now one of his more famous paintings among the 800 he squeezed into his short life. Here is my rendition, in memory of this man who contributed so much to art and who received so little in return.

The first of the following drawings I did at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which displayed a photo of a young Van Gogh. This and other early photos are a stark contrast to the gaunt and haunted look of Vincent’s later self portraits, which are widely seen. Here is a more rare glimpse of the man.
In case you need a touching moment, here’s Lianne’s rendition of Starry Starry Night. Don Mclean gave light to this song that will live as one of the most touching eulogies of all time, whose disturbed mind gave us so much beauty, so much innovation.
