Un adiós al verano – A Goodbye to Summer

(Image property of FBC, Omnia Caelum Studios València. All Rights Reserved)

Millones de Españoles y otros europeos, ya se encuentran en las autovías, carreteras, trenes, aviones y buses regresando a casa. Ojalá conduzcan con prudencia para que todos lleguen…

El precio de la gasolina ha bajado en España pero el gasoil ha subido…

La luz, bueno ha bajado pero sigue alta pero no como en nuestros países vecinos como Francia, Bélgica y Alemania…

El gobierno ganó ayer y se aprobó la ley para el ahorro energético y la oposición siguió oponiéndose a todo, como de costumbre…

Quizá truene y quizá llueva en nuestra Comunitat Valenciana pero ha llegado el finde y eso causa alegría…

Finalmente Coldplay hace gira por el reino, Costa que me importa muy poco…

Feliz finde a todos…

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Millions of Spaniards and other Europeans are already en route back home after summer vacation. The highways, roads, trains, airplanes and buses are full of travellers returning. I hope the ones driving drive like wise and prudent people…

The price of gas has gone down again but the price of gasoil has gone up…

The price of electricity is high but it has gone down here in Spain, not like in France, Belgium and Germany, who are paying double what we pay…

Yesterday the government won. The Royal Decree was passed and the measures will be in place to save energy. The opposition of course stood opposed…

They say it may rain and it may thunder in our Comunitat Valenciana but the weekend is here and that makes us happy…

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Finally Coldplay is touring Spain, I could care less…

Gracias…

Cheers…

El hiperrealismo, segunda parte – Hyperrealism, second part…

Aunque no es uno de los movimientos vanguardistas del S. XX que me atraiga, tengo que reconocer que la obra de estos dos artistas, Eduardo Naranjo y Richard Estes, participes del genero, si me provoca interés. Noto que han utilizado la técnica del genero, pero para crear cuadros que dicen algo, que no solo figuran como un gran reto a la fotografía. Para ver una imagen hecha a la perfección fotográfica prefiero ver la fotografía. Pero para estos dos vale la pena es esfuerzo de crearles un vídeo.

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Although hyperrealism is not one of the vanguard movements in art of the XX C. that interests me, I do have to say that the work of Eduardo Naranjo and Richard Estes does. I see that they use the techniques but to create interesting paintings. They don’t try to challenge photography. Instead of seeing a painting done to photographic perfection, I would rather see the photograph.

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(2022)

Os agradezco mucho vuestros likes y que compartáis este vídeo. Los likes ayudan a que mas personas interesadas en el arte lo encuentren en las búsquedas de YouTube. Muchísimas gracias.

I really appreciate your likes and your shares of this video. Likes are very important in YouTube as they move the video higher in the search engines and makes it available to more people that are interested in art. Thank you!

El hiperrealismo, primera parte – Hyperrealism, part one…

(A Girl, 2006. © Ron Mueck. Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Puede que esculturas como estas os resulten bastante inquietantes, pero así es el hiperrealismo. En este caso un elemento en particular, el hecho que la escultura de la recién nacida es tan extremadamente grande, me provoca interés. Me cuadra cuando el artista usa el genero…que es aburridísimo…para crear algo mucho mas interesante.

Ron Mueck, nacido en 1958, es un escultor australiano que trabaja en el Reino Unido.

Sculptures like these can be a bit unsettling or even creepy, but that is the essence of hyperrealism. In this particular instance, the fact that the sculpture of the new-born is so huge, has made me take an interest. I like when an artist uses the genre…a most boring one…to create something much more interesting.

Ron Mueck, born in 1958, is an Australian sculptor working in United Kingdom.

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(Duane Hanson)

La obra de este artista-escultor norteamericano, Duane Hanson, (1925-1996, Minnesota), si que no me gusta para nada y me parece que es algo que hasta llega a espantar. Sus obras no me dicen absolutamente nada pues son imágenes de gente que uno puede ver con bastante frecuencia en la vida.

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A hyperrealist artist that I’ve absolutely no use for, whose work I find very disturbing and with little or no artistic value is Duane Hanson, (Minnesota, 1925-1996). His sculptures tell me absolutely nothing as these are images that I see daily as I walk through life.

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Otro hiperrealista que tampoco me llama la atención es Mike Dargas.

(Mike Dargas. Photo courtesy of ArtPeople.net)

Sus cuadros son muy grandes y solo muestran a una modelo a quien le han chorreado miel o agua por la cabeza. Nada mas…

Mike Dargas nació en Alemania en 1983.

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Another hyperrealist whom I’ve absolutely no interest in is the German artist Mike Dargas (Cologne 1983). His paintings are large but only bear the face of a model on whom has been spilled honey or water. Nothing more…

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Aquí os convido a ver un vídeo de una artista valenciana cuya obra, aunque no hiperrealista tiene su parecido pero es mucho mas interesante.

I now invite you to watch this video of a Valencian artist whose work, although not really hyperrealist, it is similar but much more interesting.

(Paula Bonet – 2022)

Os agradezco grandemente vuestro apoyo aquí en este blog como en mi canal de YouTube. Los likes son muy importantes porque ponen el articulo o vídeo en un lugar superior en las búsquedas y eso ayuda a que mas personas interesadas en la historia del arte lo encuentren. Muchísimas gracias).

I truly appreciate your support and your encouragement here on this blog and on my YouTube channel as well. Likes are very important as they place the article or video higher in the search engines and that allows more people, interested in art, to access the video and watch. Thank you so much).

Gracias…

Cheers…

#art, « Mujer con libro» – “Woman with Book”

(Image property of FBC, Omnia Caelum Studios València. All Rights Reserved)

Siempre he batallado contra el estilo, pero a veces hay que abrazar al enemigo. Por consecuencia mi estilo es uno que he inventado yo, el «surreal-expresionismo»…

Los colores crean una abstracción que le da el toque surrealista a lo que es puramente un cuadro expresionista.

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I have always battled against styles but sometimes you must embrace your enemy, as I have. Consequently my style, a style I’ve invented is “Surreal-Ezpressionism”…

Here the colours create abstract art which s we’ve to give the painting its surreal quality while remaining a genuine expressionist work.

Gracias…

Cheers…

Observaciones/Observations: El ojo que todo lo ve – The All-Seeing Eye

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Todo lo que sabemos es mentira…

Todo lo creemos cierto es falso…

Existimos en el pensamiento de alguien que desconocemos,

pero valemos tanto

que a veces me parece que podemos romper este ensueño en el que vivimos y salir por el óculo del templo y volar como los ángeles…

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Everything we know is a lie…

Everything we believe is true is false…

We exist in the thoughts of someone we do not know

but we are so precious

that sometimes I think that we can break free of this dream-state in which we live and rise through the oculus of the temple and fly like the angels…

2022, Francis Bravo Cabrera, Valencia, España.


¿Que es arte? – What is Art?

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Os dare algunas respuestas:

Arte es útil, pues todo se ha inventado y desarrollado según conceptos artísticos, y aquí estoy hablando de los grandes inventos como los mas simples, digamos un cuchillo de cocina y un tenedor…

El arte lo decide nuestra pupila, nuestro cerebro, basándose en nuestra cultura y experiencias…

El concepto de «arte» va cambiando según cambian los tiempos, y según el lugar. o sea, es parroquial y a la vez evoluciona…

La sociedad también decide que cosa es arte y le da valor.

No creo que el arte sea, necesariamente, producto de la imaginación, pues la imaginación esta sometida a nuestras experiencias y a criterios previos…

Para determinar que cosa es arte, la tenemos que someter a seis pasos:
El rechazo; la resistencia; la resignación; la aceptación; la exaltación y la transmisión.

El arte tiene grados, pero básicamente una obra de arte es buena o mala.

Hay referentes también, digamos las obras expresionistas ya juzgadas y admitidas en el haber social, si una obra se acerca a las aceptadas es considerada arte…

Y hay que fijarse bien pues el rechazo a algo nuevo, totalmente nuevo, puede indicar que esa cosas nueva o no sirva o que siga los pasos anteriormente mencionados y se convierta en arte…

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I will give some answers…

Art is something useful in society because almost everything we use in our day to day life resulted from a design, in other words it came from an artistic expression, from an automobile to a fork and knife…

Art is judged by our eyes, by our brain based upon our cultural level and our experiences…

The concept of art changes according to the times and to the geography, in other words it is regional as well as it evolves…

Society also decides what is art and gives it value…

I do not think art is necessarily a product of the imagination because the imagination is fed by our experiences and prior criteria…

To determine what is art we must subject it to these six steps: 1- Rejection; 2- Resistance; 3- Resignation; 4- Acceptance; 5- Exaltation; 6- Transmission…

Art has degrees, but basically it is either good or bad…

There are references established. If you create an expressionist work, modeled and in the style of the accepted expressionists you will create art. It would not be revolutionary or new, but it will be classified as art…

And we should think closely about rejecting a style different or new. It could end up being simply rubbish, or it could be on the way to becoming art…

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Que disfrutéis…

Have FUN…

(2022: Porfa, no te olvides de darle el «like», comparte para seguir el debate y comenta – Please do not forget to «like, share and comment» so we can continue the conversation)

Gracias…

Cheers…

Women Artists Series (limited), page 1: Remedios Varo…

(Remedios Varo, photo courtesy of ABC newspaper of Spain)

This first page of this limited series, that will feature my favourite women artists, brings you one that I greatly admire, Remdios Varo. She is considered a Spanish-Mexican artist, or in some articles/books, a Mexican artist. However, she was born in Girona, Catalunya, Spain. And I am a bit pissed at the fact that no one spoke to me about her while in Art School at uni!

I don’t consider her a Mexican artist, although really it doesn’t matter at all, because she was formed in Spain. Actually she was one of the first women to study at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando de Madrid (The Royal Academy of San Fernando for the Fine Arts of Madrid). She moved to Barcelona in 1932, worked as a commercial artist/designer and joined the Catalan surrealist group Logicofobista. She went to Paris in 1937 together with the French surrealist poet Benjamin Péret. In 1941 when the Nazis conquered Paris, she sought political exile in Mexico and, destiny interfered and she was never able to return to Spain. She died of a heart attack in 1963 at the age of 54 in Mexico City. She never sought the Mexican nationality.

Her work is categorised…by many…as surrealism, but I disagree. She did join a surrealist group and I am sure she learned much from them. But I don’t think of her as a surrealist painter. I find her to be more in tune to painting images from literature and fantasy. And although she did make some surrealist drawings and sketches, I think those were part of her search, those were exercises and things she had to do to become a complete artist.

I will feature some of her work, but I strongly urge you to look further and if you have the opportunity to go see an exhibition of her paintings (which are rather rare), go, you will see amazing things!

I will leave it there, hoping that you will seek much further into this great woman artist and to others, because there are more. Just to mention an outrageous fact, here, at our great Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid (one of the most famous and recognised museums in the world) there are only five women artists with eleven paintings within an exhibition of more than one thousand. This has to change.

(Remedios Varo: Girona, Catalunya, 1908-1963)

There are many, I am sure you have…by now if you watch my videos and follow my blog…gotten to know a few but next time I will feature another great one, featured in this video:

(Please do not forget to LIKE, to comment and SHARE)

Now have some fun with Sheena…(I am sure she was a feminist!)

Cheers…

Querido diario, p#444 – Dear Diary, page 444

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Si viviera en un mundo abstracto…y quien dice que no vivo en uno…fuera una línea en una abstracción.

¿Existe realmente lo abstracto, lo que no tenga significado ni relación alguna con la realidad que conocemos?

Quizá la música clásica. Pero hasta la música, siendo abstracta, nos hace pintar cuadros en la mente, e.g. la sonata Claro de luna de Beethoven…

Creo que no hay manera de escapar de las comparaciones pues ciertamente todo nos recuerda algo…

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If I lived in an abstract world…and who’s to say I do not…I would be a line in an abstract work.

Do abstracts really exist? Is there something that has no meaning and no reference at all with the world that we know?

Maybe classical music. But even music, abstract as it is, paints pictures in our heads, e.g. Beethoven’s piano sonata Claire de Lune…

I really think that we’ve no way of escaping our ability to make comparison. And everything reminds us of something…

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Aquí os dejo un corto vídeo que hice hace muchos años que creo os ayudará a meditar sobre cosas como estas, la abstracción.

Here I leave you a short video I did a long time ago that might help you meditate on these things like abstract art.

(No olvides de darle al “Like” – Don’t forget to hit “Like”

Gracias…

Cheers…

#poetry “And When I Reach the Edge” (Euro-Ku)

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And when I reach

the edge

will I sink beneath the tide or will I walk in the water?

C.2022, Francis Bravo Cabrera, 23 AUG 2022, València, España.