My personal highlights from Museo del Prado, part 1“¡Aún dicen que el pescado es caro!“ (tr. “
My personal highlights from Museo del Prado, part 1“¡Aún dicen que el pescado es caro!“ (tr. “And They Still Say Fish are Expensive!” by Joaquín Sorolla. The theme and title of the picture are inspired by the final passage from the novel The Mayflower which Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (1867– 1928) was writing at the same time that his fellow Valencian was painting this picture, and was published in 1895. The novel describes the wretched lives of fishermen and ends with the story of an accident suffered by a team of mariners on the high seas and the rescue of the dead body of one of them which is taken into the belly of the wrecked boat. “El príncipe don Carlos de Viana” by José Moreno Carbonero.The eldest son of King Juan II of Aragon and Queen Blanca of Navarre, Carlos de Viana was heir to both thrones, yet his father disowned him in favor of his other son, Fernando “The Catholic.” Because of his growing popularity in Catalonia, Fernando forced him to abandon public life, and that is the moment Moreno Carbonero immortalizes in this work. A resigned Carlos dedicates himself to reading and studying at the library of the Neapolitan convent where he took refuge“Expulsión de los judíos de España (año de 1492)” (tr.”The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain (in the year 1492)”) by Emilio Sala. This scene represents an audience the Catholic Kings supposedly gave to the maximum representative of the Jews after they ordered the expulsion of his people. According to literary tradition, the inquisitor, Torquemada, burst into the audience and threw a crucifix on the table, exclaiming that the money offered by the Jew to avoid expulsion should not be accepted, and comparing it with the money for which Judas betrayed Christ.“Flevit super illam” by Enrique Simonet Lombardo. based on a passage from the Gospel of Saint Luke (19: 41) which prophesies the destruction of Jerusalem: “Videns Jesus civitatem flevit super illam” (And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it). “Los amantes de Teruel” (tr.The Lovers of Teruel) by Antonio Muñoz Degrain“Demencia de doña Juana de Castilla” (tr. The Madness of Joanna of Castile) by Lorenzo Vallés. In the catalogue accompanying the 1867 exhibition, this painting was glossed with the following text, chosen by the painter himself: “The Queen ordered the corpse of her husband, Philip the Fair, be removed from its coffin and placed in their chamber on a richly bedecked bed. Recalling what a certain Carthusian monk had told her about a King who resurrected fourteen years after his death and his body had been kept unburied, she did not separate herself for an instant from his side, hoping for the happy moment when she would see him restored to life. All the insistence of the most respectable personages from her court was incapable of dissuading her from her obsession, and she always responded to them by telling them to be silent and to wait for her lord to awaken.” (Letters of Pietro Martire d´Anghiera). “El entierro de San Sebastián” (tr. The Burial of Saint Sebastian) by Alejandro Ferrant y Fischermans. Under the reign of Emperor Maximilian, Deacon Sebastian was tortured and finally dumped in Rome´s main sewer, the Cloaca Maxima. The Emperor hoped that he would never be found there by the Christians, who would consider him a new martyr. Nevertheless, through a dream, the devout Lucina discovered where his body was and, with the help of her servants, carried his body to the catacombs to be buried in a crypt alongside the bodies of the Apostles. -- source link
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