Thursday, December 01, 2011

Big art in Portugal

(Photos by your humble blogkeeper)
I like art that looks like richly drawn cartoons, whether it's from the late Roman period, the twentieth century, or so fresh that the paint looks barely dry. I like it whether it turns up in a train station, in a museum, or on the street.


Here are an azulejo in Porto's São Bento station (left) of a Portuguese king about to kick some butt, and a third- or fourth-century mosaic (above right) of Hercules in a domestic spat in Lisbon (Painters have it easy. Sculptors and mosaicists deserve extra props for portraying facial expressions in stone and glass.)

In Porto, someone put some empty wall space to good use in the old Ribeira section (yet another UNESCO World Heritage site).

What's good about this art? It's narrative and decorate at the same time. It's colorful, it's easy to read (Look at the postures and facial expressions), and it will make you smile even if the figures in the artwork don't share your amusement.

Long live big art!
© Peter Rozovsky 2011

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2 Comments:

Blogger Tales from the Birch Wood. said...

The murals in Melbourne are well worth searching out.

Flinders Street is beautifully decorated in places and the graffiti is certainly as big and bold as anybody could wish for.

Again, great photos.

December 02, 2011  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

Thanks. Adrian McKinty once posted a link to a lot of Melbourne graffiti. The Porto examples are special, though, for their quality and their setting.

December 02, 2011  

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