Sorolla and the Sea at the Norton in West Palm Beach

February 4, 2025February 6, 2025 / antonioyrocinante / Leave a comment

Maybe because the Joaquín Sorolla house and museum is around the corner from my family home in Madrid, Sorolla was the first painter I connected to. Maybe it was his Mediterranean scenes that took me to my own Summers in the Med. Whatever it might have been, Sorolla has a special place in my heart.

When I am in Madrid, I often sneak into the garden of the Sorolla house museum to read, and occasionally I will go inside to visit the paintings like old friends (you can read about that here).

So when I learned the Norton Museum was hosting an exhibition to complement their existing (huge) Sorolla painting, I had to see it.

It did not disappoint. Most of the paintings are on loan from the Hispanic Society in New York City which commissioned many paintings from Sorolla. The exhibit includes some drafts of paintings, a bronze sculpture from his dear friend and paisano Benlliure -the marble one is in the garden in Sorolla’s house, even one of Sorolla’s palettes!

Sorolla is known as the painter of light, leaving behind the Impressionists, and creating a space of his own, beyond labels.

If you are in the Palm Beach area you should see it, you are welcome.

West Palm Beach as an oasis of art and culture.

May 30, 2023May 25, 2023 / antonioyrocinante / Leave a comment

If you pay attention and follow this blog you will notice that the main topics covered are The Camino, academics and education, Literature, art and culture, and then a lot of random thoughts and stuff.

This reflects who I am, of what drives me, what makes me tick. And as such it is -I guess- remarkably reliable. The reason for my passion for art and culture lies in the emotions involved and invoked by art.

Fortunately, a lot of art is now accessible from the comfort of your home: film, books, and so forth. But, a lot of art has to be shared, you have to get out to experience it. I am blessed to live near Palm Beach, which is -I have said this before- an oasis of art and culture in this suburban wasteland that is South Florida.

The Norton Museum gets a lot of attention in this blog because it is a jewel of a place which I love. I recently went to see their latest addition: John Singer Sargent’s painting of Amy Phipps Guest. It is a beautiful painting with illumination reminiscent of Sorolla (they were contemporaries and not only did their careers overlap, their technique is eerily similar).

Another cultural treasure of Palm Beach is the Palm Beach Symphony, which I saw perform Handel’s Messiah in December. I recently saw them perform their season finale, at the Kravis Center, their “home”, which included Mozart’s Piano Concerto #23, Franck Symphony in D minor, and Hailstork’s Monuments for solo trombone

In conclusion: thank God for Palm Beach.

Return to culture (at last)

February 7, 2019April 15, 2019 / antonioyrocinante / Leave a comment

La Abadia theatre is in an old abbey!!

At the Fundación Juan March

At the Prado

Bicentenary

Mediterranean light is unique

Can you smell the pine trees?

Sorolla is one of my favorites!

A little Art Deco…

Museo del Romanticismo

One of the massive pluses of living in a major world capital is the amazing cultural offering one has access to. I really needed this cultural stimulation. The problem with the word culture is that it has been made to sound elitist, refined, distant from the people, the stuff Frazier and Niles Crane did, but in truth it is just beauty, beauty created by man – and woman of course! The least important bit is if we call it culture, art, or whatever.

I have been lucky to live in major cities where I became a cultural junkie: London (where it all started for me), Paris, Boston, New York, even Chapel Hill – a college town, but obviously with a thriving cultural scene. Unfortunately Naples only had a couple of cultural outlets (which I squeezed every last drop from), and in NJ I didn’t get a chance to explore although of course the heavy stuff was in NYC…

In the less than three months back in Madrid I have been lucky to experience:

A brilliant piano recital by local piano star Luis Fernández Pérez playing Händel, Scarlatti, Rameau, and Bach. For free at the Fundación Juan March.
A play/recital of Federico García Lorca’s poetry by stage icon Nuria Espert.
Jean-Paul Sartre’s eerily prescient play Nekrassov (1955) about the “fake news”.
A gorgeous version of The Nutcracker by the prestigious Compañía Nacional de Danza and the Teatro Real house orchestra!
Visits to the Sorolla museum, the Museo del Romanticismo, and a score of art exhibits including “Rediscovering the Mediterranean” at the Fundación Mapfre with paintings and sculptures from the XIX and early XX Centuries.
After fourteen years I again became a member of the Amigos del Prado, which allows me free entry to the Prado, avoiding the queues. I have, of course, already gone twice!
Seeing a couple of concerts in bars around town by chance.
Never mind being surrounded by amazing architecture.

Et cetera, et cetera, down to awesome street musicians and performers! And this is with limited time and money. The cultural menu is, in fact, overwhelming, but I am happy to nibble and enjoy!

Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit.

Jawaharlal Nehru

Museo del Romanticismo

December 27, 2018April 15, 2019 / antonioyrocinante / Leave a comment

In past posts I have written about the Museo Sorolla and the Lázaro Galdiano, Two of my favorite museums in Madrid. Today’s turn is for the Museo del Romanticismo, another unknown jewel of the Madrid museum offerings.

Fortunately for us locals, most tourists are pressed for time and just rush through the Prado and by Picasso’s Guernica at the Reina Sofia. They rarely venture any further to discover other really rewarding pearls of art and history, at most they will check out the Thyssen (major works of minor artists and minor works of major artists), thus completing what is known as the Art Triangle (all three museums are a stone’s throw from each other).

But beyond that trio, there are plenty of other, obviously much smaller, museums.

The serious face was Jimmy’s idea

The main staircase (The serious face was Jimmy’s idea)

Museo del Romanticismo

The Museo del Romanticismo is housed in an old XIX C. palazzo in a quiet neighbourhood, in a small street. No fireworks here. The fireworks are inside as the museum is chock-full of art, furniture and objets, even King Fernando VII’s toilet! (as one would expect, it is a very nice piece in wood and velvet, with the poop going to a key locked drawer – we don’t want anybody stealing royal poop!). But the real treasure is a huge Goya painting in the tiny chapel (oratorio). Other pieces include the gun journalist Larra used to kill himself, and much, much more. To finish the visit is the obligatory cute gift shop and an even cuter café with garden seating in good weather!

This year I had a chance to go with my nephew Jimmy. We had a nice stroll and got to see a temporary exhibition on Rafael Tegeo, possibly Spain’s favorite XIX C portrait painter.

Museo Lázaro Galdiano

September 27, 2017September 20, 2017 / antonioyrocinante / 1 Comment

A few years ago I wrote about the Museo Sorolla in Madrid, a hidden gem in the big city. A small, personal sized museum, which proves that there is no relationship between size and quality. A few blocks away is another such gem, the Museo Lázaro Galdiano. I re-visited it recently with my sister.

Hidden in plain sight, in the middle of busy Calle Serrano, better known for its shopping than for museums (although the Archeological museum is down the street). The museum in housed, as you might have guessed, in what used to be Lázaro Galdiano’s house. It is a big house, a huge house. In Spanish we call it a palacete, in English, you borrow the Italian word palazzo, at any rate, it is big. And it is full of wonderful art. From ancient Greek and Roman nick knacks to Goya and Velazquez paintings. Each gorgeous room is full of wonderful pieces: medieval art, paintings by Hieronymus Bosch, El Greco, Murillo, jewelry, weapons, ceramics, furniture, sculptures, etc. The house itself is a work of art, beautiful wooden floors, painted ceilings, central staircase, and gardens. It also has the obligatory gift shop, and a research library.

My sister Rocky and I were pleasantly surprised that here and there were pieces of modern, contemporary art. Call us old-fashioned, but in general, in contrast to the art surrounding it, the modern pieces did not measure up.

Finally, the museum publishes Goya, a serious art/academic magazine. Of course, my dear friend and Dissertation Director, Irene Gómez Castellano, has published an article in it.

While the lines at the Prado, the Thyssen, and the Reina Sofia are discouragingly long, you can generally just walk straight into the Lázaro Galdiano, and walk around at your own leasurely pace, and definitely get your money’s worth. When you finish, you are on glamorous Calle Serrano, and you can stroll to get a coffee or a meal!