Arriving in Lisbon, I was some what disconcerted when the taxi driver told me that I was a long way from the centre. The hotel had been booked because of its proximity to the Calouste Gulbenkian and Modern Art Museum. Not in relationship with the old town. "A good hour's walk" I was told or 6 stops in the underground. I had also been told that Lisbon was very hilly - so far so good. A slow slope down to the Edward Park and having found Cortes Ingles, the very famous Spanish department store, I went in to buy some facial cream. It was a museum in itself and for an hour I wandered around watching customers change unwanted Christmas gifts. There were a lot of bored men around until I got to the men's department where the women were rushing around the men trying to get them to select something - they wanted! Or it looked that way to me. The Sales were already on so there were the frenetic buyers too but I wasn’t here for this. The sun was about to set when I left the store. No museum today and a good 30 minute walk back to the hotel.
The Calouste Gulbenkian is not an attractive building from the outside but the collection is of course quite breathe taking. I was not expecting a remarkable temporary exhibition, "The Ages of the Sea" one which features the many symbolic and physical representations of the sea over four centuries of western paintings from the 16th to the 20th.
It’s divided into sections: power, myths, sea and labour, storms and shipwrecks, the ephemeral and the quest for infinity. If this way of segmenting the sea made it easier to understand, so much the better. I was happier wandering around, stopping, "it can't be an Emil Nolde......a Klee.....de Chirico.......not really a Hopper (but not too interesting)......Dufy.....Beckman......and some artists - names I knew but couldn't place. Two hours had gone by and I had only just begun. How lucky I was as this was the last day of the exhibition.
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| Arnold Böcklin - Sirens 1875 |
They don't really look very appealing Sirens, do they now?
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| Joaquin Torres-Garcia - Constrictivist Boat and Train 1940 |
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| Max Beckmann - The Quay Wall 1936 |
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Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso - The Sloop boat 1914-15
Cubic influenc ? |
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| Maria Helena Veira da Sliva - Shipwreck 1944 |
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| Arpad Szenes - Flux and Reflux 1965-72 |
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| Paul Klee - Sailing Boats in motion 1939 |
Fabulous - so small, so minimalist and just a few strokes
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| Emil Nolde - Summer clouds 1913 |
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Raoul Dufy -Maritime Festival and official isit to Le Havre 1925
The colours are far more luminous.... | |
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The permanent collection although not what I would go to normally is not over powering and the Egyptian room is remarkable. Small and beautifully preserved objects BC, displayed in such a way that it was a pleasure to look at them. I wandered slowly through the rest of the museum, stopping every now and again And was about to leave when I saw the René Lalique room. I have never been a follower, but these.......
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| René Lalique |
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| René Lalique |
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| A chocker - René Lalique |
From the late lunchtime queue it would seem that I would have to wait. So over to the modern art museum which is also part of the Calouste Gulbenkian foundation. Once again a very convivial space. The artist Carlos Noguiera "a Place For all things" occupied 80% of it.
This is the first show to bring together the work of Carlos Nogueira. Works from the period spanning the early 1970s to today will be presented, showing the proximity between the artist's different work methods and processes including performance, drawing, sculpture, the artist’s writings or books, and also the numerous means of questioning the onlooker.
Frankly, if I had seen this description before hand, I wouldn’t have bothered.
His installations left me cold although the entrance to the main gallery was not uninteresting . A reproduction of his street art.
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| Entry to the exhibition space and everyne could write on a scrap of paper....I didn't |
There were some eye-catching small works which were in preparation for larger or installations. Nothing I'd write home about.
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| BOOK OF TRAVELS - ....Carlos Nogueira : wood and carton |
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| 4 ELEMENTS, PAPER, PEN, PHOTOCOPY....Carlos Nogueira |
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| Carlos Nogueira |
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| Carlos Nogueira |
The permanent collection was small and some unknown painters for me from the early 20th which I was happy to discover. Early 20th century for instance names such as Barradas, Marques, Rui Chafes, Julio Pomar, Joaquin Rodrigo, Eduardo Viano, Amado Souza- de Cardos and of course Aschille Gorky and Delaunay. Looking at the photographs will perhaps not surprise you why I liked them. There movement, colour of course, sometimes something that can be related to and the sculputre by Rui Chafes, «During Sleep» really looked as if it was suspended in air....
This latest exhibition from the collection looks at early twentieth-century Portuguese modernism, touches briefly on the art of the 1940s and 50s, and then focuses on the 1960s and 70s, decades which were noted for the creation of objects, with their dual status of volume and painting, form and word, and abstraction and representation.
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| Amadeo-Souza-deCardos - Entrada 1917 |
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| Amadeo-Souza-deCardos - The life of instruments 1916 |
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| Eduardo Viana - Th Little girl 1916 |
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| Aschile Gorky - Wish Fulfilment 1944 |
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| Julio Pomar - Bull Herdsman 1963 |
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| Joaquin Rodrigo - Soria-Nimes 1971 |
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| Rui Chafes - During Sleep 2002: standing or floating? |
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| R. Delaunay - Femme nue lisant 1915-16 |
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| Jorges Barradas - untitled 1946 |
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| Bernado Marques (1898-1962) No title no date |
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| Joaquin Rodrigo - Madrid 1966 |
By the time I got around to lunch it was Spanish time - and then a quick look at the Chiado. No permanent collection today and as for the temporary - nothing to say.....
Tomorrow I would discover Lisbon. Which I did. I have a strange relationship with maps. Apart from the fact I'm hopeless at reading them, until I have walked a city, a new place and "feel" it, maps confuse me. So I walked. Lisbon as those know it, is a very hilly place. Seven hills....I did take the famous 28 tram when returning to the centre after having spent a couple of hours at the Castelo de S. Jorge. - after a little over an hour climbing to see it.
For those who are historically interested it was built by the Moors in the 11th century and the last defensive stronghold for the elite who resided on the citadel. There was the Christian Conquest in the 12th C and then the castle was taken over by royalty from the 13th to the 18th. An earthquake in 1755 and finally it becomes a Military Garrison in the 19th C and a National Monument in the 20th when restoration began in 1938-40. It is for the view and the very tame peacocks that would, I think bring the tourists flocking in.....
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| Half way up and a stop to breathe |
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| Proud and tame |
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| A view but ? |
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| And another |
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| And another .... |
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| Unlikely playmates.... |
The 28 was jammed full going up and virtually empty coming down. There was the Cathedral and a few other churches but the reward was the view and then I got my barings. The 28 dropped me off on the port where I sat in the sun eating a very late lunch. If I climbed a steep hill I took a tramway if I found one to come down. I did that twice. Its quite an experience coming down such steep slopes especially as I chose to stand next to the driver.
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| Something I have always wanted - a patchwork quilt! |
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| Looking back at the castle |
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| And I had walked up too.... |
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| A lovely bit of street art seen from the tramway |
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| Now you know what to do with your old car.... |
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| Another I had taken down |
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| Not a very interesting sunset.... |
Then a walk home across the Edward Park with a rather dull sunset before I continued. It goes to say after 8 hours on my feet, my muscles were aching.
The rain poured down the following morning. So at last I would get to the Berado collection in the modern and contemporary design centre. A little out of the way to Belem where I was informed there were five museums to visit and the Basilica but I was looking forward to the Berado as had read that it was one of the most famous in Portugal and one of the best in Europe which could well be dispersed in time - Portugal is in need of money. This was one of the reasons I had chosen to come to Lisbon.
The Berardo Museum has one of the world's most acclaimed modern art collections, with works by Warhol, Picasso, Dali, Duchamp, Magritte, Miró, Bacon, Jackson Pollock, Jeff Koons, among others representing dozens of modern movements.
It was amassed by Portuguese magnate Joe Berardo, who for many years had wanted to create a museum for his vast collection. Cities like Paris and Miami were interested in buying it, but the Portuguese government made sure it was kept in Lisbon and agreed to provide space inside Lisbon's Belem Cultural Center
Thank goodness I had seen many other sites before this. It may be the 50th in the world wide hit parade but all the paintings I was looking forward to seeing, Pollack, Bacon, ..... were out on loan or at Sintra! The space is huge but the collection or what was on show was very limited. As usual there are always paintings to discover. A Gerhard Richter, a Louise Bourgeois sculpture, a fascinating Anish Kapoor"eye to eye" sculpture. You really had to put your hand in to believe the eyes were hollow, a Peone and a Frank Stella. However, I would not have come to see these alone.
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| Sue Williams - Let me Fix my earing first 1997 |
A new artist for me....as there are so many
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| Gerhard Richter 1987 |
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| Sigmar Polke - Elena's Shoe 1986-88 |
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| Louise Bourgeois Torso self portrait 1963-64 |
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| Giuseppe Penone - Cuneo 1969 |
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| see the space..... |
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| The legend is very appropriate for the space |
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| Anish Kapoor - Eyes turned inwards 1993 |
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| More space.... |
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| Frank Stella 1967 - entrance to the collection |
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| Promising - a Calder when entering the building |
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| The museum entrance |
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| My foot work in on the left.... |
As I was leaving the gallery but not looking at my feet, I skidded and slipped on an installation with stones all around it. A young attendant raced over, helped me up and together we put the pebbles back into place, hopefully creating a safer passage way to the exit, not to mention a new installation!
It was sunny the following day and off I went to Sintra. A few friends had told me that the visit should be a priority. Friends and Guide books maybe descriptive but I really didn't know what I was going to see. I had read that the walk was over 4 kilometres up hill to the Moorish castle and the Pena palace and gardens were a must. After an hours metro and train trip, I could see the crowds rushing for the bus. I decided to set out on foot. I spent more time walking and going up or coming down but the gardens and woods were divine. A big compensation was the smell of the gum trees and seeing gum nuts along the way. But was the view worth it when I finally got to the top over an hour later? This is the Moorish Castle.
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| Beautiful perfume |
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| I'm climbing.... |
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| And climbing.... |
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| Still not there.... |
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| That's where I'm going to.... |
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| And I'm there.... |
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| But wont go up as far as that.... |
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| And now I'll come down.... |
Now to the Pena palace and another long walk up to it. The castle was a little like something out of Disney land. A long line of noblemen had built the château. Don Fernando ll was known as the «Artist King» and the creator of the park and part of the palace. As a painter he had adorned his office with nude nymphes dancing on the walls. The rooms seemed to be a hotch potch of styles but very comfortable.
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| Walking up to the Pena Palace |
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| Disney land? |
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| And a rather alarming coat of arms.... |
Another crowded bus so off I went on foot back into Sintra, down a very steep road - for cars but not pedestrians. Another hour and more wasted even if the walk was full of woody perfumes and views of the country side. There would be no time to visit the modern art museum and that was a shame. The question was now, where was the station?
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| Sintra |
New Year's Eve is upon as and back to Paris for me. At the same period last year I spent New Year in southern Portugal in Praia de Galé, close to Albuferia and that was the beginning of my blog "Sharing with me". For those who follow me around discovering all I do, thank you. There are already a number of trips in store but before I'm off again, let me wish you all a New Year which is fully up to your expectations.
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