Γεμιστες Πιπεριες – Stuffed Peppers

Σημερα εφτιαξα κατι ελαφρυ αλλα νοστιμο για να ξεφυγω λιγο απο την ενταση του ψητου και της σαρκας. Ειναι πανευκολο και σαν πρωτο πιατο παει σχεδον με ολα. Εν προκειμενω αποτελεσε το κυριο πιατο. 

Today I wanted to cook something light but tasty, to escape the taste of the lamb and the other Easter delicacies. This dish is easy and as a starter goes well with everything. Today it was the main dish and it behaved quite well.

Βρηκα τροφαντες πιπεριες σε τρια χρωματα κοκκινο, πορτοκαλι και κιτρινο (απο τη Δραμα) κι ετσι χωρις δισταγμο προχωρησα στην συνθεση της γεμισης.

I found in my neighbourhood market nice peppers from Drama (Northern Greece) in three colors: red, orange and yellow, and without any hesitation I proceeded to prepare the stuffing. 

Η βαση αποτελειται απο ελαιολαδο, αφθονο κρεμμυδι και ψυχα κουκουναρι. Αφου καβουρντιστουν καλα αυτα τα δυο, και καραμελωσουν τα κρεμμυδια, προσθετω μαυρη μικρη σταφιδα, λιγη φρεσκια ριγανη για τα αρωματα της, αλατι, πιπερι, και το ρυζι. Αφου τα φερω τρεις βολτες στο καυτο τηγανι ολα μαζι,   σβυνω τη φωτια και προσθετω αφθονο δυοσμο και κολιαντρο ψιλοκομμεντα για να αποδωσουν τα αρωματα τους στο μεγιστο. Προσοχη: καθολου σκορδο!

The base of the stuffing is onions and pine kernels that are brown and caramelized. After this is done, I add black raisins (small), fresh oregano leaves, salt, pepper and rice. Once the mix is homogeneous, I take the pan off the heat and add chopped cilantro and mint.  

Κρεμμυδι με ψυχα κουκουναριου - Onions and pine kernels

Η συνεχεια ειναι απλη και πανευκολη. Ανοιγμα καθε πιπεριας, εξω τα σπορια, γεμισμα μεχρι τη μεση με τη γεμιση, και ουτω καθεξης. Για να ψηθει καθε πιπερια, χρειαζεται και λιγο νερακι η ζωμο απο πανω, οτι κι αν εχετε ειναι ενταξει. Πρεπει ομως να ειναι χλιαρο.

The rest is really easy. Open each pepper, get rid of the seeds, fill to the middle of the rim with the stuffing, add a bit of warm water or stock and cover. 

Ετοιμες για το φουρνο - Ready to bake

Προσθετω πατατες και απο πανω ολοκληρες ντοματες απο κονσερβα (χρειαζομαι την οξυτητα, οταν ειναι καλοκαιρι βαζω φρεσκια ντοματα). 

I add potatoes and canned whole tomatoes (when it is not the season for them) because I need the acidity.

Παμε για ψησιμο και σε 45 λεπτα ειμαστε ετοιμο. Βγαζουμε απο το φουρνο και αφηνουμε να ηρεμησει για 30 λεπτα. 

Bake for 45 minutes in 200 Centigrade and let it rest for 30 minutes before serving. 

Ετοιμο για σερβιρισμα - Ready to serve

Οι πιπεριες παντα αρπαζουν λιγο, αλλα αυτο ειναι μερος της χρησης αυτης της πρωτης υλης. 

The peppers may burn a little, but this is part of the story!

Σερβιρισμενο - Served

Το αποτελεσμα ειναι ενα γευστικωτατο πιατο, με τα αρωματα απο τον κολιαντρο και το δυοσμο να αγκαλιαζουν την φρεσκια ριγανη και χερακι χερακι να πανε να συναντησουν την τραγανη υφη της ψυχας απο το κουκουναρι, με υποβαθρο την λεπτη γλυκυτητα της σταφιδας και παραδιπλα την οξυτητα της ντοματας. Ολα αυτα με την θεαμταικη υποκρουση απο το καραμελωμενο κρεμμυδι και την γλυκεια θαλπωρη που αποδιδει η ζουμερη σαρκα της πιπεριας. 

The highlight of the taste is the interplay between cilantro, mint, raisins, pine kernels and the sweet moist flesh of the peppers in the environment created by the caramelized onions. 

Γεωργιανη τυροπιττα - Georgian Cheesepie

 Και ηρθε και η φιλη μου η Λ και μου εφτιαξε τυροπιτα απο τη Γεωργια, με φετα και γραβιερα, ενα θαυμα απλοτητας, με βελουδινο φυλλο ανοιγμενο στο χερι.

When I was ready to serve, my good friend L came and prepared a cheese pie (hajapuri) from Georgia (not the US state), using feta cheese and the Greek equivalent of gruyere. The pie is very thin, and the crust is made by hand minutes before using it in the pie. 

Καλη ορεξη! Bon appetit!

Πασχα Ελληνων – Greek Easter

Η σημερινη αναρτηση εχει θεμα το πατροπαραδοτο Αναστασιμο γευμα και τον οβελια με τα παρελκομενα. 

Οι τελετες ελαβαν χωρα στην παραλια της Βορειας Ευβοιας, κοντα στους Ωρεους, με τελεταρχες τον Κωστα και την Μαρια, αγαπημενα ξαδερφια, και παροντες πλειστους οσους, αναμεσα στους οποιους και η αφεντια μου.

 

Θεα προς τον Βορρα

Θα ξεκινησω με τον αρτο, που εποιησε η Λιλα, με μυστικη συνταγη την οποιαν ομως εδωσε στον γραφοντα για μελλοντικη χρηση. 

 

Αρτος με πασχαλιες

Το σουσαμι τελικα ειναι μεγαλη ανακαλυψη! Παει τελεια στο ψωμι που ειναι αφρατο και πεντανοστιμο!

Η Μαρια ειχε ετοιμα τα αυγα, τα οποια ηταν τοσο νοστιμα που ξεχουσε κανεις ευκολα τα ποσα ετρωγε! Αφηστε που υπηρχε και ενα με τον δαφνοστεφανωμενο νεο και αναγκαστηκε η καημενη η Μαρια να το απομακρυνει!

 

Πεντανοστιμα αυγουλακια

Συνεχιζω με την μαγειριτσα, που ετοιμασε η ξαδερφη η Μαρια.

 

Συκωταρια Αμνου

Χρησιμοποιησε την συκωταρια ενος απο τα δυο αρνια του Πασχα, και τα σχετικα εντερακια, καταλληλως πλυμενα απο τον πατερα της, που ειναι ειδικος στο δυσκολο αυτο εργο. 

 

Εντερα Αμνου

Το τελικο αποτελεσμα ηταν γευστικο και ελαφροτατο, κατι ιδιαιτερα σπουδαιο αν σκεφθει κανεις την ωρα που γινεται το αναστασιμο τραπεζι! Η συκωταρια ηταν μελι, τα μαρουλακια και κρεμμυδακια μοσχοβολουσαν, μιλαμε για τελεια συνυπαρξη.

 

Μαγειριτσα

Συνεχιζω με το κοκορετσι! Το πλεξιμο των εντερων βεβαια ειναι η τεχνη, αλλα και τα υλικα ειναι το πρωτο και σπουδαιωτερον!

 

Τα υλικα για το κοκορετσι

Το πλεξιμο ηταν εργο του ξαδερφου Κωστα, με την ακαματη βοηθεια του Αλεκου,

 

Το πλεξιμο στο κοκορετσι

Το ψησιμο ειναι μια υπεροχη διαδικασια, που μετατρεπει το ασπρο κοκορετσακι σε ενα σκοτεινο και θεσπεσιο εδεσμα!

 

Η αρχη στο ψησιμο του κοκορετσιου

Και μετα την αρχη ερχεται το τελος! Δεν υπαρχει βεβαια φωτογραφια σε πιατο, αφου το κοκορετσι εγινε αφαντο μολις βγηκε απο τη σουβλα.

 

Ετοιμο το κοκορετσι!

Και ερχομεθα στο κυριως πιατο, τον αμνο τον σουβλιστο. Θα παραθεσω μερικες φωτογραφιες απο το ψησιμο, αφου μετα τον αποσουβλισμο εγινε επιθεση και δεν εμεινε τιποτε! Και τα δυο σφαγια ειναι τοπικα, απο ενα διπλανο χωριο. 

 

Ο Κωστας και ο Αλεκος στην ψησταρια

Ο αφηρημενος εξπρεσσιονισμος του αμνου ακολουθει σε δυο ποζες.

 

Αμνος ξανθοκοκκινος

Οταν το ψητο εχει αυτο το χρωμα, χρειαζεται ακομη λιγη ωρα, εως οτου βαθυνουν οι ξανθες αποχρωσεις και γινουν καφεκοκκινες.

 

Αμνος καφεκοκκινος

Ετοιμο για σερβιρισμα!

Συνοδεια αυτου του εξαισιου εδεσματος ηταν ενα προβειο τυρι απο την Κερασια, ενα χωριο κοντα στην Ιστιαια. Αυτο το τυρι εχει μια δυνατη σπιτροζικη γευση και το λετρευω. Το προβλημα τωρα ειναι οτι η γυναικα του τυροποιου τον εμποδιζει να συνεχισει την παραγωγη, για αγνωστους μεχρι στιγμηε λογους. 

 

Προβειο τυρι απο την Κερασια

Επιδορπια ησαν πολλα, ομως εκεινο που μου εκλεψε την καρδια ηταν το γεμιστο με ανθοτυρο τσουρεκακι της ξαδελφης Μαριας. 

 

Τσουρεκι γεμιστο με ανθοτυρο

Με αυτα τα ωραια τελειωσαμε και αυτο το Πασχα, ευχομαι σε ολους χαρα και ευτυχια, και του χρονου με υγεια!

 

Παραλια Ωρεων

Ανασταση (Resurrection)

Σημερα γιορταζουμε την Ανασταση στην Ορθοδοξη Εκκλησια και θελω να μοιραστω μαζι σας την καλυτερη απεικονιση της Αναστασης ολων των εποχων. Στις προηγουμενες αναρτησεις για την Σταυρωση και την Αποκαθηλωση η προτιμηση μου στραφηκε στη Δυση, με την Ανασταση γυρναω στην Ανατολη, και δη την Βασιλευουσα Πολη.

Στην Μονη της Χωρας, στην Κωνσταντινουπολη υπαρχει η ωραιοτερη απεικονιση της Αναστασης που εχω δει ποτε. Για το λογο αυτο δεν θα περασω σημερα σε παραθεση πολλων εργων. Η τοιχογραφια στο παρεκκλησι της Μονης ειναι μοναδικο αριστουργημα. Θεωρειται οτι ολοκληρωθηκε στο πρωτο μισο του 14ου αιωνα. 

Ανασταση

Η συνθεση ειναι μεγαλοπρεπης. Ο Ιησους ελκει τον Αδαμ και την Ευα απο τους ταφους, ενω ο Σατανας κειται στο εδαφος αλυσοδεμενος αναμεσα στα σκορπισμενα απομειναρια απο τις Πυλες του Αδη.

Το μεγαλειο της απεικονισης φαινεται στην επομενη λεπτομερεια.

Ο Αναστας Κυριος

Ο Ιησους περιβαλλεται απο ενα κουβουκλιο με αστερια και λαμψη λαμπρη.Το σωμα του εχει μια κλιση που αποδιδει κινηση και ενεργεια, ανεστηθη και θα αναστησει μαζι του και αλλους πολλους! 

Η γυναικα Ευα ειναι και η Μητερα του η Παναγια! 

Στην επομενη λεπτομερεια, ο Αδαμ κρατιεται απο το χερι του Ιησου. Ο Αδαμ ως σεβασμιος γερων!

Τα χρωματα ειναι απαλα, παστελ, τυπικα της Παλαιολογιας εποχης.

Αδαμ

Ο Χρηστος Γιανναρας εχει αναπτυξει την πιο ενδιαφερουσα θεωρια για το νοημα της Αναστασης στην Ορθοδοξη Χριστιανοσυνη. Ειναι, λεει, η αρνηση της μονηρους υπαρξεως, η κατανικηση του θανατου δια της ενσωματωσεως εις το σωμα της εκκλησιας, που αποτελει το συνολο των πιστων που υπαρχουν οχι ως μοναδες, αλλα ως ενεργοι μετεχοντες πιστοι.  Δεν ξερω αν το απεδωσα καλα, αλλα το βρισκω πολυ αισιοδοξο και πρωτοτυπο σαν αντιληψη, και θα ηθελα να κλεισω το σημερινο αναστασιμο αρθρο με αυτη την αναφορα.

Ευχομαι σε ολους τους φιλους και περαστικους Καλη Ανασταση και Καλο Πασχα! 

Παραπομπη

“Η ανάσταση του Χριστού δεν περιγράφεται στα τέσσερα ευαγγέλια της Καινής Διαθήκης. Δίδονται μόνο οι μαρτυρίες ανδρών και γυναικών που επισκέφτηκαν τον κενό τάφο ή συναντήθηκαν με τον αναστημένο Χριστό. Γι’ αυτό άλλωστε και η βυζαντινή εικονογραφία – πλην ορισμένων περιπτώσεων που μαρτυρούν μάλλον δυτική αναγεννησιακή επίδραση – παριστάνει όχι τη σκηνή της ανάστασης αλλά τον αναστημένο Χριστό να σηκώνει από το βασίλειο του Αδη έναν άνδρα (τον Αδάμ) και μια γυναίκα (την Εύα) ως εκπροσώπους του ανθρώπινου γένους, υπογραμμίζοντας έτσι τις ανθρωπολογικές προεκτάσεις της ανάστασης. Ωστόσο το Ευαγγέλιο του Πέτρου, ένα κείμενο του 2ου αιώνα μ.Χ., δίνει μια φανταστική περιγραφή της ανάστασης παρουσιάζοντας τον Χριστό με υπεράνθρωπες, μυθικές διαστάσεις να εξέρχεται του τάφου:

«Καθώς ξημέρωνε το Σάββατο, νωρίς το πρωί ήρθε πλήθος κόσμου από την Ιερουσαλήμ και τη γύρω περιοχή, για να δουν τον σφραγισμένο τάφο. Τη νύχτα όμως κατά την οποία ξημέρωνε η Κυριακή, οι στρατιώτες είδαν τους ουρανούς να ανοίγουν και δύο άνδρες να κατεβαίνουν από ‘κεί μέσα σε λαμπερό φως και να πλησιάζουν τον τάφο. Εκείνη η πέτρα που είχε τοποθετηθεί μπροστά στην είσοδο κύλησε από μόνη της και ήρθε στο πλάι, ο τάφος άνοιξε και οι δύο νεανίσκοι μπήκαν μέσα. Οταν λοιπόν οι στρατιώτες τα είδαν αυτά,ξύπνησαν τον εκατόνταρχο και τους πρεσβυτέρους – γιατί κι αυτοί επίσης φύλαγαν τον τάφο. Και ενώ αφηγούνταν αυτά που είδαν, βλέπουν πάλι να βγαίνουν από τον τάφο τρεις άνδρες, οι δύο από αυτούς υποβάσταζαν τον ένα και τους ακολουθούσε ένας σταυρός. Των μεν δύο το κεφάλι έφτανε ως τον ουρανό, ενώ του άλλου που τον οδηγούσαν το κεφάλι ξεπερνούσε τους ουρανούς. Οταν τα είδαν αυτά ο εκατόνταρχος και οι άνθρωποί του,έσπευσαν νύχτα στον Πιλάτο αφήνοντας τον τάφο που φρουρούσαν και ανέφεραν όλα αυτά που είδαν. Είχαν μεγάλη ταραχή και έλεγαν: “Αληθινά, αυτός ήταν ο Υιός του Θεού”».”

Πηγη: Ιωαννη Καραβιδοπουλου “Τα Πάθη και η Ανάσταση στα απόκρυφα ευαγγέλια” Εφημεριδα ΤΟ ΒΗΜΑ

Deposition

Today is the day of the Deposition from the Cross. I would like to share with you some paintings on the subject that goes hand in hand with “Pieta”, but is more public. Pieta is a more private, more intimate grieving process, whereas the “Deposition” is open to the public, and manifests the drama of Humanity, as opposed to the personal drama of Mary who grieves for her child.

 

Rogier van der Weyden

Rogier van der Weyden - Deposition

Deposition (c. 1440)

Museo del Prado, Padrid, Espagna

This is one of all times favourite paintings. The colours are brilliant, the composition static and dynamic at the same time, and the painting is powerful in conveying the emotions of the tragic process. I love the golden background, this glorious light in the moment of facing and contemplating Death. The figures are life sizes, each one of them tells a story. A visit to the Prado with all of its treasures is incomplete without viewing this masterpiece of late Gothic Art. 

Raphael

 

Raphael - Deposition

Deposition (1508)

Galleria Borghese, Roma, Italia

Raphael’s Deposition was painted for Atalanta Baglioni in memory of her son Grifonetto, who was killed in the fighting for the dominance of Perugia, and housed in the church of S.Francesco in Perugia in 1507. It remained there for 101 years, until it was removed at night with the complicity of the priest and sent to Pope Paul V, who gave it to his nephew for his collection and it thus became the property of the Borghese family. After the Treaty of Tolentino the painting was sent to Paris in 1797. When it came back to Rome in 1816, only the central scene was returned to the Borghese collection, while the three theological virtues, Faith, Hope and Charity, remained in the Vatican Museums (the ornamentation surmounting it by Tiberio Alfani is in the National Gallery of Umbria).

This large altarpiece presents the scene like a Roman relief and is inspired by the reliefs on ancient Roman sarcophagi depicting the transportation of Meleager. It is interesting to note that in his preliminary sketch the artist has drawn Christ lying in the ground, as in the painting by Perugino, but when he executed the painting he decided on the antique form oftransportation, as seen in a relief he probably studied on the Montalvo sarcophagus in Florence (now in the Torno Collection, Milan). But the influence of Michelangelo can also be seen in the composition of Christ (cf. the Pietà, St.Peter’s) and the figure seen in the profile supporting the Madonna repeats a similar pose in the Doni Tondo (in the Uffizi, completed a year before the Deposition).

Source: Galleria Borghese Internet Site

My only problem with this painting is that Raphael managed to make everything look so beautiful, that it is hard to feel the pain and the drama in the middle of all the beauty!

Bronzino

Bronzino - Deposition

Deposition (c. 1545)

Musée des Beaux-Arts, Besançon

With Bronzino, the problem of “beauty” is even bigger, as he was a master of making everything look beautiful! You look at the little angels and it is like they are just having a good time!  And why not?  They are kids and have no idea about what is happening down there! And another point: how on Earth can everyone look so beautiful? There is no ordinary face around, all of them are glazed with beauty! Having said all that, the contrast with Christ is stark. Mary seems more puzzled than in grief, while the only grieving person in the composition is Mary Magdalen on the right side. 

 

Caravaggio 

Caravaggio - Deposition

Deposition from the Cross (c. 1604)

Pinacoteca Vaticana, Roma, Italia

The Deposition, considered one of Caravaggio’s greatest masterpieces, was commissioned by Girolamo Vittrice for his family chapel in S. Maria in Vallicella (Chiesa Nuova) in Rome. In 1797 it was included in the group of works transferred to Paris in execution of the Treaty of Tolentino. After its return in 1817 it became part of Pius VII’s Pinacoteca. 
Caravaggio did not really portray the Burial or the Deposition in the traditional way, inasmuch as Christ is not shown at the moment when he is laid in the tomb, but rather when, in the presence of the holy women, he is laid by Nicodemus and John on the Anointing Stone, that is the stone with which the sepulchre will be closed. Around the body of Christ are the Virgin, Mary Magdalene, John, Nicodemus and Mary of Cleophas, who raises her arms and eyes to heaven in a gesture of high dramatic tension.
Caravaggio, who arrived in Rome towards 1592-93, was the protagonist of a real artistic revolution as regards the way of treating subjects and the use of colour and light, and was certainly the most important personage of the “realist” trend of seventeenth century painting.

Source: Vatican Museums Online

With the master of darkness, we are now back to the depiction of the drama! Here we have real people, everyone looks in a different way and angle, the faces are dark, and Death envelopes the composition as a dark cloud.

Emil Nolde – Part II:Flowers

Today is Palm Sunday, the day that the crowds greeted Jesus with Palm leaves in Jerusalem (and they crucified him a few days later). For me it is a day full of flowers, even more so than the 1st of May, as Easter has this special atmosphere and feeling about it. It is therefore no surprise that as I continue with my post about Emil Nolde, the great German painter of the first half of the 20th century, the theme of this post is flowers. Nolde loved flowers, as you will see in the pictures that follow. I have arranged the pictures in chronological order, so that changes in style and technique can be identified in an easier way, if this is of interest to you. The commentary I have used is from the source of the picture, if available. 

Red Flowers (1906)

Museo Thyssen Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain

Violette Blumen (1907)

All his life Nolde was moved by the beauty of plants and flowers. In his later years in the grounds of his houses at Utenwarf and in Seebüll, Nolde created elaborate gardens filled with a wide range of exotic flowers from all around the globe.

Painted in 1907, Violette Blumen is one of the first series of flower paintings that Nolde painted during his summer visits to the Baltic island of Alsen in 1906, 1907 and 1908. Moving on from his purely impressionistic beginnings, the stark intensity of colour in a painting such as Violette Blumen reveals Nolde consciously using colour to stimulate and evoke an emotional response in the viewer.

Much of the inspiration for this ‘humanizing’ of nature came not just from Nolde’s own personal experience but also from the example set for him by Vincent Van Gogh. Like Van Gogh, Nolde always aimed to work swiftly and impulsively over the surface of the picture in order to give energy and life to his paintings and heighten their sense of emotional intensity. Nolde, like many of his contemporaries, was greatly suspicious of the rational element in art and elevated instinct above reason as being the most important source of creativity. ‘In art I fight for unconscious creation’, he wrote to his friend Hans Fehr, reiterating elsewhere that ‘the quicker a painting is done, the better it is…When inspiration falters, even for a moment, barren reason leaps to the rescue, and then the work is ruined. If only I could catch it, I would pin reason against the wall and give it a good hiding.’ (Emil Nodle cited in Max Sauerlandt ed., Emil Nolde Briefe aus den Jahren 1894-1926 Hamburg, 1967, p. 31)

On the island of Alsen it was the well-kept fisherman’s cottages there, which had ’small, rich, beautifully kept gardens, surrounded by beech hedges and always abounding in flowers,’ that inspired many of his finest and most adventurous paintings. For Nolde, flowers were a vivid example of the eternal cycle of birth, life and death in Nature. As a passage in his autobiography reveals, flowers were for him a beautiful product of creation and could be likened to a work of art in the sense that their life cycle was essentially the same. Both, he argued, were the products of natural forces and thereby subject to the same laws of creation and inevitable decay, ’shooting up, blooming, radiating, glowing, gladdening, drooping, wilting, and ultimately thrown away and dying. Our human destinies are by no means always so logical or so beautiful’ (Emil Nolde. Jahre de Kämpfe 1902-1914, Berlin, 1934, p.228.).

Nolde’s flower paintings communicate the artist’s pantheist belief in nature and his love of all aspects of creation. In this respect they relate closely to his darker and more complex religious paintings, which Nolde insisted, demanded ‘a particular attitude of mind’ from the viewer.

Depicting the radiant blooming colour of a variety of different flowers sprouting from the green undergrowth and seeming to scream the richness and vitality of their from the surface of the picture, Violette Blumen is an intense and heavily textured work that boldly asserts Nolde’s love of and atavistic faith in the beneficial power of the garden.

In its stark contrast of rich reds and deep purples set against their chromatic opposites of pale greens and light yellows, this painting radiates with a full colour intensity. It is an intensity for which Nolde, in these early years received some criticism from people complaining that such paintings falsely exaggerated the colours of nature. Such criticism Nolde strongly rebuked as he discussed with Hans Fehr at this time. ‘The beholder’, he told his friend, ‘will say about my flower paintings that the colours are exaggerated. That is not true. I once positioned my canvases amidst the flowers themselves and saw immediately how much they paled compared to nature. We have no idea how jaded our eyes have become’ (Emil Nolde in conversation with Hans Fehr in 1908, cited in Hans Fehr, op cit, p. 56). 

Source: Christie’s, Department of Impressionist and Modern Art

Violas (1908)

 

Painted in 1908 and acquired by Hans Fehr in 1910, Blaue Stiefmütterchen (Violas) is one of several early flower paintings made by Nolde in which, working within the legacy of Vincent Van Gogh, the artist deliberately sought to echo and mimic the procreative colour and bloom of nature through the texture, brushstroke and creativity of his own painting.

For Nolde, his lifelong love of flowers was deeply rooted with his profound sense of ‘Heimat’ that began in his mother’s garden in the village of Nolde when Emil was a child. There, Nolde later recalled, ‘I often walked with her in the garden… and so I could not help but watch all the flowers as they grew, blossomed and shone forth. There was a bed of noble red roses where I would sometimes cut back the wild, thorny shoots for her. All the flowers bloomed for her pleasure and for mine, and the sun shone out over the garden.’ (Emil Nolde Das eigene Leben (1867-1902), Cologne, 1994, p. 120).

 

In this witnessing of the natural life-cycle of flowers rooted to and later blooming and dying in their own native soil Nolde recognised a clear metaphor for the way he felt about his own art and life. ‘In painting I always hoped that through me, as the painter, the colours would take effect on the canvas as logically as nature creates her configurations, as ore and crystals form, as moss and algae grow, as flowers must unfold and bloom under the rays of the sun’ (Emil Nolde, Jahre der Kämpfe 1902-1914, Berlin, 1934, p. 107). 

Source: Christie’s, Department of Impressionist and Modern Art

Blaue Iris I, 1915

 

 

Basel Kunstmuseum, Switzerland

 

Flowers, watercolour

Like the sea, flowers were an abiding source of inspiration and consolation for Emil Nolde, a cause for joy in periods of difficulty. Nolde’s wife Ada shared his love of flowers and together they planted gardens with tulips, dahlias, poppies, irises, bluebells, and sunflowers at their homes in Alsen, Unterward, and Seebüll. Of their small garden in Alsen, Nolde wrote, “I loved the glowing colors of the flowers, the purity of their colors.” After he and Ada moved to Unterward in 1916, Nolde used the absorbent Japan paper that he had discovered in Berlin about 1910 and worked “wet in wet.” Nolde had ambitions to be a figure painter, specifically to paint religious subjects. But he took with him from flower painting that use of broad planes of color for emotional impact.

Source: St Louis Art Museum , USA

 

Still Life, Tulips, about 1930

 

 

North Carolina Museum of Art

Red, blue and yellow tulips with Bust (1930-35), watercolour

 

Galerie Nehen, Essen, Germany

Ripe sunflowers (1932)

Detroit, Institute of Arts, USA

Glowing Sunflowers (1936)

Museo Thyssen Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain

 

Sunflowers in the Windstorm (1943)

Sunflowers in the Windstorm was painted while World War II raged across much of the globe. At the time he created this work, German artist Emil Nolde was forbidden by the Nazi government to paint. The Nazis, who preferred idealized art that promoted party policies, detested Nolde’s emotionally expressive style of painting, which they labeled “degenerate.” In defiance of the order, Nolde painted in secret anyway. Most often he painted watercolors; only on rare occasions did he dare to paint in oils, for fear that the smell of the pigments might betray him. Sunflowers in the Windstorm is one of just five oil paintings he created in 1943. Its storm battered flowers, which bend but do not break, may be read as symbols of the human spirit in the toughest of times.

Source: Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio, USA

 

Red Poppy Seed and Coneflower, watercolor on paper, ca 1945

Galerie Ludorff, Duesseldorf, Germany

Fish and Seafood in the Boqueria Market, Barcelona

Today I peesent some pictures of fishes and seafood from the Boqueria Market in Barcelona.  

Bacalao (Cod) 

Bacalao

Dorada (Dory)

Dorada

Escorpornas (Scorpion)

Escorpona

St Pierre

San Pietro

 Unknown

Rodaballo (Turbot). Note the dark colouring of the fish, especially compared to the ones of the Eastern Mediterranean, which feature pink colours.  

Turbot

Tuna 

Tuna

Navajas (razor clams). A perfect delicacy, as you can taste it in the food stalls inside the Boqueria, with parsley and garlic.  

Navajas

Navajas

Navajas

Navajas

A rich variety of crabs all over! It is like a dream.

Centollas (spider crabs)

Centollas

Necoras (Velvet crabs)

Necoras

Buey vivo (edible crab, cancer pagurus)

Bueys

Langostas (lobsters)

Langostas

Langostinos (king prawns)

Langostinos

Gambas

Gambas

Carabineros

Carabineros

Camaros

Camaros

Galeras

Galeras

Cigalas

 

Crayfish

Crucifixion II

I continue today with the second part of the Crucifixion paintings, from the 19th  to the 20th century.

Paul Gauguin

Yellow Christ (1889)

Paul Gauguin

Albright-Know Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, USA

Emil Nolde

Crucifixion (1912) 

Emil Nolde

Nolde Stifftung, Seebull

On February 20, 1912, the painter Emil Nolde wrote to his friend and patron Karl Osthaus, director of the Folkwang Museum in Hagen, concerning an upcoming exhibition there, and announced a major new work:

In the last year I have created a piece consisting of nine biblical pictures that belong together.I finished it during the last few weeks. I thought that I would also send this to you forexhibition. The size of the entire piece: 240cm high, 630cm wide.

On February 28, 1912, he wrote to his long-time friend Hans Fehr about the piece, enclosing a thumbnail sketch of it that shows a large central picture of a crucifixion flanked on either side byfour paintings. Nolde identified the subjects of the eight smaller canvases in writing on thesketch: Holy Night and The Twelve-Year-Old Christ (left above), The Three Magi and TheBetrayal of Christ (left below), Women at the Tomb and Ascension (right above), Resurrectionand Doubting Thomas (right below).2 All nine canvases of this work, known collectively as TheLife of Christ, remain together today in the galleries of the Nolde Foundation, near Seebüll,Germany. 

Nolde no doubt recognized that the monumental scheme of The Life of Christ–far larger than any previous work–almost literally hinged on Crucifixion.7 For it he incorporated a symmetrical severity and a solidity of construction well beyond any earlier picture. The three crosses establish the central axis, outer boundaries, and upper edge of the composition. Nolde pushed the figures almost into a single plane very close to the picture’s surface. He reinforced the iconic effect that results with certain aspects of his primitivizing style, mainly angular forms, flat colors, and unworked surfaces….

Of the individual canvases for The Life of Christ, Crucifixion contains the most obvious traces of an interest in Northern Medieval art. Crucifixions from this period frequently include several motifs—all incorporated by Nolde. First, the tortured flesh of Christ, in the form of an emaciated body, prominent wounds, and streams of blood. Grünewald’s Crucifixion from the Isenheim Altarpiece is the best known and most extreme example of this type. Second, the followers traditionally stand to the left of the cross and display intense emotions through gesture and physiognomy, often with the Magdalene on her knees and grasping the base of the cross and the Virgin collapsing into the arms of St. John. Third, many contrast the followers on the left with an equally distinct group of executioners and mockers to the right. Nolde even imitated a convention of some Medieval art by enlarging the body of Christ for prominence.

Source: William B. Sieger, Literary Texts and Formal Strategies in Emil Nolde’s Religious Paintings

Georges Roualt 

Crucifixion (early 1920s)

Georges Rouault

Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Pablo Picasso

Crucifixion (1930)

Pablo Picasso

Musee Picasso, Paris, France

Picasso in addition to the painting (oil on wood) prepared more than ten drawings with ink as “studies” on crucifixion. The Isenheim Altarpiece of Grunewald gave him inspiration and challenge.  

Marc Chagall

White Crucifixion (1938)

Marc Chagall

Art Institute of Chicago

Francis Bacon 

Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion  circa 1944

Francis Bacon - Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion

Tate Gallery, London, UK

When this triptych was first exhibited at the end of the war in 1945, it secured Bacon’s reputation. The title relates these horrific beasts to the saints traditionally portrayed at the foot of the cross in religious painting. Bacon even suggested he had intended to paint a larger crucifixion beneath which these would appear.He later related these figures to the Eumenides – the vengeful furies of Greek myth, associating them within a broader mythological tradition. Typically, Bacon drew on a range of sources for these figures, including a photograph purporting to show the materialisation of ectoplasm and the work of Pablo Picasso.

Source: Tate Gallery’s website

Fragment of a Crucifixion (1950)

Francis Bacon - Fragment of a Crucifixion

Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven

Major artists create myths around themselves or have  the ability to motivate others to do it for them. The way Francis Bacon’s work has been received is coloured by this. The view that at certain moments the person and the work sometime coincide gained increasing emphasis in Bacon’s career, culminating with the feature fi lm Love is the Devil (1998) by John Maybury. There is hardly any other artist whose world is so much a part of his work, and spicy details about his life are happily quoted by biographers and reviewers. Bacon himself refused to go into the interpretation of his paintings and after 1962 even forbid any interpretive comment in catalogues. His argument was that there was not anything to explain. Fragment of a Crucifi xion and the response to Bacon’s work give cause to think about interpretation, biography and autonomy. Do the paintings exemplify a state of mind, or can they be related to views about identity and the male body? Do they represent a post-war view on the world, in which the automation of human interaction can be heard, or do the themes deprive us of an insight into a painter ‘easy on himself’?

Source: Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven

Salvador Dali

Christ of Saint John of the Cross: Nuclear Mysticism  (1951)

Salvador Dali

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow

“The title of the painting was said to have been inspired by a drawing made by a Spanish Carmelite friar who was canonised as St John of The Cross in the 16th Century.

It was made after the saint had a vision in which he saw the crucifixion from above.

Dali painted his crucifixion scene set above the rocky harbour of his home village of Port Lligat in Spain. ”

Source: BBC

Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) (1954)

Salvador Dali

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Dali commented on his painting:

“Metaphysical, transcendent cubism, it is based entirely on the Treatise on Cubic Form by Juan de Herrera, Philip the 2nd’s architect, builder of the Escorial Palace: it is a treatise inspired by Ars Magna of the Catalonian philosopher and alchemist Raymond Lulle. The cross is formed by an octahedral hypercube. The number nine is identifiable and becomes especially consubstantial with the body of Christ. The extremely noble figure of Gala is the perfect union of the develpment of the hypercubic octahedron on the human level of the cube. She is depicted in front of the Bay of Port Lligat. The most noble beings were painted by Velazques and Zurbaran; I only approach nobility while painting Gala, and noblity can only be insired by the human being.” 

Antonio Saura

Crucifixion (1959)

Antonio Saura

Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Euskaleria

“Ever since I was a boy I have been obsessed with Velázquez’ Christ in the Prado in Madrid, with his face darkened by the black hair of a Flamenco dancer, with his bullfighter’s feet, with the stillness of a flesh and bone puppet transformed into Adonis. I can even see myself immersed in the hazy museum, holding my father’s hand and looking at the terrible pacific cross, which I remember as something immense”.

The constant presence of the Crucifixion between 1956 and 1996 doesn’t respond to religious belief. It is, in the artist’s own words, a way of looking at the “timeless presence of suffering”.

“Contrary to Velázquez’ Christ, in these works I thought that by giving the image a feeling of tension and protest it was possible to capture a trace of almost blasphemous humour, but there is something else. In the image of the Crucified Christ, I may have reflected my situation of man alone in a threatening universe at which it is possible to shout, although, seen from another angle, I am also interested in the tragedy of a man “not that of a god” absurdly nailed to a cross. An image which can still serve as the tragic symbol of our era”.

Source: Guggenheim Museum’s website