BANKSY GRAFFITIES DECORATE THE NEW ANTONIO BANDERAS HOUSE

It is very well known the passion for the art of Antonio Banderas, who is not only reduced to his work as an actor but extends to other fields, such as painting or photography, a passion that the artist has brought to light in several exhibitions such as the recent "Women in gold" by portraying the female figure through its objective and for which he had to the Spanish actress Paz Vega as muse.

And now Antonio Banderas and his wife Melanie Griffith have decided to radically change their new New York exclusive penthouse of 371 square meters, combining classic Hollywood style with Art Decó and the most famous graffiti art currently, Banksy (born in Bristol in 1974), has been chosen to decorate it with some of his works, forming an explosive combination of mainly dark colors with a flash of color.

Banksy, who refuses to reveal his identity so far, began his career spray painting buildings in Bristol, England. With his acid humor and strong sense of social criticism, went from being considered a criminal by the British police to be revered as a street artist, whose works reach thousands of euros in the art market. Loved by many and criticized by others, what it is certain is that he doesn’t leave anyone indifferent, as it has happened to Antonio Banderas.

  I am really very curious to know what will be the grafitti
that Antonio will choose for his new house

And as if  Antonio Banderas wouldn’t be versatile enough, he has also heavily involved with the world of fine arts painting a replica of the " Guernica" by Pablo Picasso to learn more about the personality of the great painter from Malaga, the character that  Antonio will play next year in the movie "33 days " directed by Spanish director Carlos Saura and co-performed by Gwyneth Paltrow, whose title refers to the 33 days that took Picasso to paint his masterpiece.

 

Picasso (1957)

LA ALHAMBRA PALACE AND PAINTERS WHO WERE INSPIRED BY IT

Edouard Gerhardt

The most visited monument in Spain is The Alhambra. It was a palace, a fortress and a citadel, as well as the residence of the Nasrid Sultans and top government officials, court servants and the royal guard.

The name Alhambra comes from an Arabic root which means "red castle", perhaps due to the towers and walls that surround the entire hill which by starlight is silver but by sunlight is transformed into gold. Though there is another more poetic version, evoked by the Moslem analysts who speak of the construction of the Alhambra fortress "by the light of torches", the reflections of which gave the walls their particular coloration.

There is no reference to the Alhambra as being a residence of kings until the 13th century, even though the fortress had existed since the 9th century. The first kings of Granada, the Zirites, had their castles and palaces on the hill of the Albaicin, and nothing remains of them.

The Nasrid ruler Ibn al-Ahmar made Granada his capital. Within the walls he began a palace, which he supplied with running water by diverting the River Darro nearly 8 km to the foot of the hill; water is an integral part of the Alhambra and this engineering feat was Ibn al-Ahmar's greatest contribution.

The founder of the dynasty, Muhammed Al-Ahmar, began with the restoration of the old fortress. His work was completed by his son Muhammed II, whose immediate successors continued with the repairs. The construction of the palaces (called Casa Real Vieja, "old Royal House or Palace") dates back to the 14th century and is the work of two great kings: Yusuf I and Muhammed V. To the first we owe, among others, the "Cuarto de Comares" (Chamber of Comares), the "Puerta de la Justicia" (Gate of Justice), the Baths and some towers. His son, Muhammed V, completed the beautification of the palaces with the "Cuarto de los Leones" (Chamber of the Lions), as well as other rooms and fortifications.

The Alhambra became a Christian court in 1492 when the Catholic Monarchs (Ferdinand and Isabel) conquered the city of Granada. After their conquest of the city, the Reyes Católicos lived for a while in the Alhambra. They restored some rooms and converted the mosque but left the palace structure unaltered. As at Córdoba and Sevilla, it was Emperor Carlos V, their grandson, who wreaked the most insensitive destruction, demolishing a whole wing of rooms in order to build a Renaissance palace.  The remaining Austrian kings did not forget the monument and have left their own more discreet impressions on it.

In 1812 it was taken and occupied by Napoleon's forces. Two decades later the Alhambra's "rediscovery" began, given impetus by the American writer Washington Irving, who set up his study in the empty palace rooms and began to write his marvellously romantic “Tales of the Alhambra” (on sale all over Granada – and good reading amid the gardens and courts). Shortly after its publication, the Spaniards made the Alhambra a national monument and set aside funds for its restoration. This continues to the present day and is now a highly sophisticated project.

During the 18th century and part of the 19th, the Alhambra fell into neglect until 1870 when the Alhambra was declared a national monument. Travellers and romantic artists of all countries had railed against those who scorned the most beautiful of their monuments. Since that date and up to now, the Alhambra, protected, restored, cared for and even improved, has been preserved for the pleasure and admiration of all.

It is currently an artistic-historical monumental group with four clearly distinguishable zones: the Palaces, the military zone or Alcazaba, the city or Medina and the villa of the Generalife, all of them surrounded by woods, trees, gardens, parks and vegetable gardens.   

And here you are some samples of how different painters have inspired on this work of art in the course of time.

Mariano Fortuny

Henri Matisse

Gustavo Simoni

Edouard Gerhardt

Santiago Rusiñol

Edouard Gerhardt

Joaquin Sorolla

Ernst Rudolf

Joaquin Sorolla

Santiago Rusiñol

Adolf Seel

John Singer Sargent

Henri Matisse

Wilhelm Gail

Joaquin Sorolla

Jan Calderwood

Veena Waziri

Childe Hassam

Margaret Murray Cookesley

And I am sure this amazing and stunning monument will keep on inspiring many more artists or no artists as time goes by, don't you agree?

Source:

www.spanish-fiestas.com

www.andalucia.com

www.nerja-capistrano.com

THE MADRAZO, A FAMILY OF FAMOUS REALIST PAINTERS FROM THE 19th CENTURY

I love Federico and Raimundo de Madrazo art, they belonged to an artist and very talented family of painters, teachers, architects, critics and museum directors. Its members included some of the most important artists in the 19th century in Spain. And today I felt like writing a post about them to share with you. I hope you enjoy it!

Federico de Madrazo y Kuntz (1815 – 1894)

He was born in Rome, he was the son of the painter Madrazo y Agudo, who was the Court painter, director of the Royal Academy of San Fernando and the King's Gallery (subsequently the Prado Museum). He was the most sought-after Spanish painter of the second third of the 19th century, and had an unrivalled reputation both in Spain and abroad. This was thanks to his family background, his social situation, and above all to his early artistic training by his father. He was the brother of Pedro de Madrazo, a celebrated man of letters, critic and author of several of the first catalogues in the Prado Museum. Another of his brothers, Juan, was the architect who planned the restoration of León Cathedral. His brother, Don Luis de Madrazo, was also known as a painter, chiefly by his Burial of Saint Cecilia (1855).

While still attending the classes at the Royal Academy of San Fernando, he painted his first picture, The Resurrection of Christ (1829), which was purchased by Queen Christina.

While decorating the palace of Vista Alegre he took up portraiture. In 1852 he went to Paris, where he studied under Franz Winterhalter, and painted portraits of Baron Taylor and Ingres. In 1837 he was commissioned to produce a picture for the gallery at Versailles, and painted "Godfrey de Bouillon proclaimed King of Jerusalem". The artist then went to Rome, where he worked at various subjects, sacred and profane. Then he painted Maria Christina in the Dress of a Nun by the Bedside of Ferdinand III (1843), Queen Isabella, The Duchess of Medina-Coeli, and The Countess de Vilches (1845-1847), besides a number of portraits of the Spanish aristocracy, some of which were sent to the exhibition of 1855.

He received the Legion of Honour in 1846. He was made a corresponding member of the Paris Academy of Fine Arts in 1853 and in 1873, on the death of Schnorr, the painter, he was chosen foreign member. After his father's death he succeeded him as director of the Museo del Prado and president of the Academy of San Fernando. He originated in Spain the production of art reviews and journals. He died at Madrid in 1894.

And here you are some of his paintings:

Federico's best-known pupil was his son, Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta.

Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta (1841 - 1920)

Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta was born in Rome in 1841 in a family of famous painters, later he became a brother-in-law of one of the most important painters of the 19th century Spain, Mariano Fortuny. This solid basis allowed him to turn into one of the bulwarks of the so-called bourgeois realism which development acquired the central and determining role. His first studies in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid and his later studies in Paris with Leon Coignet brought severe but correct academic touches into his early works.

A traveler and a cosmopolite with good connections with professionals, he never sent a single work to the national exhibitions, but together with Giuseppe de Nittis, his Belgian friend Alfred Stevens, and a gallery keeper George Petit he staged the International Exhibition of Painting which aim was to promote the foreign art in the real artistic capital of the fin de siècle: Paris.

After the first attempts in the academic style he turned to the more decorative and fresh painting continuing in a certain sense his brother-in-law Fortuny’s tradition with the refined realism transferred to the canvas through a subtle and elaborate colour spectrum that reached the heights of mastery in the works inspired by his model and lover Aline Masson, combining tender feelings and the primacy of the execution. He was notable for the portraits, making this genre one of his favorite ones; it was not in vain that his father was a great portrait painter who taught Raimundo, and the latter added a personal touch to the elegant French portrait of the Second Imperium that, in the long run, had its roots in the English portrait painting of the previous century.

The influence of the Rococo and of Japanese art is reflected in his painting, which expresses an exquisite aristocratic or bourgeois ideal, the illusion of a refined, sensual and superficial life. Consequently, his works are also described as representing the 'Parisian seraglio'. American collectors paid high prices for his paintings. The Museo del Prado has a good number of his paintings.

And here you are some of his paintings too:

Sources:
http://www.spainisculture.com/
www.answers.com
http://www.josedelamano.com/
en.wikipedia.org