Still, awful? There’s beauty and passion in how the blue is applied to these draperies, how they are drawn, the carnation and blush in the Virgin’s Cheers, the star-like composition. The Virgin has the same size as Jesus, bigger than the angels, and they are organized so that they circle the Virgin

It’s a late medieval piece in a style that looks more Gothic or Trecento than what was done at the time in the Netherlands, not to mention Italy. The proportions are kind of not there, too. Check out this Saint Peter? And that sun reflecting on the surface… Well, it’s neither here not there.

I was looking up Mosan Art today and, while trying to identify this picture, I found whoever it but posted by someone who called it “awful”. It’s the Ascension of the Virgin painted by the so called “Master of the life of the Virgin”, thus an unknown author with several pieces with a similar style.

Being as it was beyond the river, right outside the city and by an “almunia” or countryside palace it was an appropriate place to sign the peace between the Catholic kings and the last Nasrid king, Boabdil. There is so much history within and around those walls it can barely contain it…

Marabouts were “holy men” in the North-African tradition, later co-opted by Islam and brought to Spain by the Almoravid invaders (same root, indeed: al-morabitum, “the marabouts” or holy men). You can see that Islamic origin still in the preserved octogonal dome decorated with a 16-points star.

Today I went on purpose to the hermit church of San Sebastián, which only opens one hour a week, for mass, and I had never visited before. It’s a remarkable building: it might have been a “morabito”, or marabout shrine or hermitage.

It didn’t threaten too much the Spanish soccer team, who saw this motif and colors in the Belgian away kit, although I think that hardly any player could pinpoint its origin. Because Magritte was Belgian, a “petit bourgeois”; tired of Brèton and his posse he went back home to Belgium.

Bells, like apples, like clouds, like hats or pipes, appear all over Magritte’s work, apparently referring back to his infancy, a simple form, with a simple sound… But here they seem to grow from other bigger ones, and convert into a hovering menace under a disconcerting sky.

“Pink bell, tattered skies” is a painting by Magritte hosted at the Centro Reina Sofía in Spain. Not only juxtaposes realist elements within the same frame, it also puts together a simple, realist skyscape together with a murmuration of pink bells over pink/salmon and blue blotches.

And it’s an interesting statue, epic in the posture of Quixote, sad and down-to-earth in his horse, Rocinante, and Sancho and his donkey. Quixote is in an “admonitio”, greeting someone, maybe in the scene where he tried to free some prisoners. Such a famous literary persona, not so iconic, right?

Among the brutalist architecture that surrounds the Place, this sculpture designed by Coullaut Valera, Spanish 20th century artist. Designed because it’s a copy of the one in the Plaza de España in Madrid, a gift from that city during the Spanish presidency of the EU.

Well, Belgium was defeated but Spain and Spain have had a close, and not always merry, relationship. You can see that in Brussels, but also elsewhere. You will bump into this Quixote if you walk from the Grand Place to the Central Station (if you don’t know the new entrance level with the Place)

But of course also for localized architecture: these architects needed to know local craftsmen, material and architectural vocabulary, giving us buildings such as this one, Casa Ferrán, which is fully modernist, but also integrated with the vernacular language, using stone and iron.

In this case the architect was called Pablo Monguío and he got a position (which no longer exists) called “provincial architect”, in charge of all public works without preventing them to take private commissions. That position existed until almost the 21st century, and was a boon for heritage.

Although Gaudì is pretty unique, his creative process was born in the context of the Barcelona Architecture School, where many other modernist buildings were educated and their art irradiated to many other places in Spain, including this place, Teruel, with the moto “Teruel exists too”. Right-on

That origin explains the frieze, which does not cover the whole length, but is inset. It looks like a “bacante”, or dance for Bacchus, but at any rate, it’s a combination of arts and crafts in a single building. Hope it’s been maintained throughout all the renovations.

It was built originally as a “Palais des Danses”, a French name in an English town, which apparently is the name it’s got now after a string of owners. Before Bauhaus, form didn’t follow function; it rather looks as if it covered as much as possible the real estate it’s taking.

I visited Nottingham a long time ago, but I had the chance of taking pictures of whatever drew my attention, which back then was mainly architecture. This “Oceana” really popped, out, with its daily-journal like ball at the top and aspect of a bunker. But it looks also art deco, of course.

Billy Connelly is probably not well known outside Scotland, but he’s a real figure there, including another two murals representing him. His long career as singer, TV host, comedian, all around good person has created the oversize persona we see in the mural, a colossus against the cloudy background

Still, I could pull a few pictures like this one, of a mural by Vettriano in Glasgow representing Billy Connelly. Graffiti/urban pictures was one of the main reason I got them: in most cases, you don’t really have a good angle to take a front picture. The rounded aspect gives it more attractive

I went through a couple of no-name wide-angle cameras before I realized that they really sucked. They sucked so much that they didn’t even bother in putting their real name in the EXIF picture data; this one had “MAKER NAME” as the camera brand. Sensors were so slow that most pictures came blurred.

One of the things you learn in History of Art is to not judge; nothing is more beautiful or ugly or well-made or tasteless. Every work is a message, solves problems. Still, you can’t help but think this is trying to solve the problem of representing a guy you barely remember and maybe hate.

Spain is playing against Portugal right now, featuring Cristiano Ronaldo in what might be his last international game ever, so I went back to my Madeira album. I might have forgot most of the places I visited, but I won’t forget this bust of the aforementioned player. No, it’s not Jimmy Somerville.

Botticelli paints beautifully, with a level of vegetal details that has few peers; but the composition of figures oblivious of each other makes it either mysterious or primitive, depending on how you look at it. During Renaissance, characters started to “talk” and relate to each other. Not here, tho

Taken, as many other topos, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which is, after the Bible and the Golden Legend, a big source of inspiration for painters and sculptors alike, what it shows is the lightly robed Cloris turning into the florally dressed Flora by the blow of Eolo. There’s the metamorphosis

I couldn’t pull of a better pic than this one from “Spring” by Botticelli. It was a few years ago, but the place was crowded. I’ve heard that they’ve changed the layout recently, so it might be a bit better now. Be that as it may, we still get a good view of Cloris turning into Flora by Eolo.

The architect Galán Carvajal commissioned the painter Zuloaga for the decoration, intended to represent swans, according to the wishes of the initial owner. Being as it was a maternity hospital, everyone in town called them storks. Its balconies, cornices, balusters everything is beautifully crafted

Called “Sanatorio Miñor”, it was a private home, then a hospital (where our queen Letizia was born, BTW) and now it’s set to become a museum of philosophy, whatever that means. Being in the “neo” era, what kind of neo do you think this is? Neo-Aztec? Neo-Mayan? Modernist, certainly.

This building just drew my attention while walking in Oviedo, Asturias, Northern Spain; you can see the gray skies that are so characteristic of this area. Maybe that’s why this building got that bright red color. I think it’s a modern decoration, though; it was built in the 1910s

Being as it is in the Vatican Museums, it’s not the usual ityphallic rider, if you get my drift (or remember his sculpture in the Peggy Guggenheim, for instance, that seems to be very happy to see the Gran Canal) but it does have those carbon stripes that give it a primitive look, if not Cycladic