The Visceral Surge of Spanish Art

The plummy walls of the San Diego Museum of Art give the exhibition they surround, From El Greco to Dalí, a velvet jewel-case warmth. If the rooms were full of Goya’s ferocious Caprichos or Disasters of War, or Miró’s baleful work of the 1930s, or Picasso’s unforgiving restlessness, well, then, all that warmth would fast fly out the ventilation ducts. But it’s not that sort of show.

The pictures in From El Greco to Dalí, instructive, historically balanced, and occasionally exciting, belong to Pérez Simón, a Spanish-Mexican businessman born in Asturias who began collecting only 20 years ago, so the collection’s limitations have been determined by market availability. He has a great passion for the art of his homeland, however, and the things on view, while sampling a few familiar masters, fill lacunae in our knowledge of Spanish art. Mr. Simón has been especially acquisitive of works by another Valencia native, Joaquín Sorolla (1863–1923), a painter virtually unknown here, and his general strategy has been to buy stuff that represents the progress of Spanish art from 15th-century panels to 17th-century Mannerist painting up to the formal inventions of the 20th Century.

To judge by what’s on view, after Goya’s prolific, all-mastering expansiveness of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Spanish painting — compared to what was happening during the same period in the France of Impressionism and Symbolism — seemed to lose its nerve. It didn’t find new excitements until Picasso, the sculptor Julio González, and Miró came along. The late 19th Century in Spain looks a lot like the same period in Italy, when a group called the Macchiaioli (I’d loosely translate that as “daubers” or “mark makers:” “macchia” means stain, spot, mark) treated indigenous Italian subjects with sketchy, vaguely impressionistic technique. From El Greco to Dalí, like Macchiaioli painting, is top heavy with women and anecdote — women sewing, women milking cows, women gossiping at village fountains, and one swell duchess mounted on a horse (both costumed like parade floats).

The Spanish parallel to Macchiaioli painting was costumbrismo, which represented regionalist customs and scenes of daily life in a quickened but dense impasto. Sorolla made many pictures in the style, though he sometimes inflated the ethnographic intimacy of costumbrismo into the monumentality of Afternoon Sun, where countrymen use three pair of oxen to tow a fishing boat to shore. Even in the small oil study included in the exhibition, you can see how Sorolla relished stormy sea spray and ribbons of ocean current. Much of his output looks to me like a mash-up of Manet, Degas, Boudin, and Cassatt. He’s a deft and enthusiastic colorist who is easy on the eye and easy to like. You sigh with affection before his pictures, you don’t gasp with surprise or astonishment or drop-dead delight. He’s also an example of a historical turnabout: you see in his brushwork something of Manet’s inflammatory handling, though Manet was himself critically shaped by Velázquez, Ribera, and Goya.

Spanish painting sometimes feels like raw experience just barely mediated by an artist’s touch. I visited the Prado for the first time last year, and when I walked into the room containing Goya’s The Third of May 1808, I felt physically shoved around, first by its dimensions (106 x 137 inches), which no book reproduction had prepared me for, but mostly by the brutality and merciless candor of Goya’s depiction of the firing squad execution of rebels who resisted French occupation. (Manet’s Execution of Emperor Maximilian comes straight out of Goya’s picture.) It reminded me that the most memorable pictures often entail misbehavior, whether in the use of formal resources or in the treatment of subject matter. That said, Goya also was a court painter who made elegant, telling portraits, one example of which — Doña María Teresa de Vallabriga y Rozas — appears in the exhibition.

One of the finest things here is also one of the smallest, El Greco’s Head of Christ. The Greek effectively became a Spanish artist because he spent 30 years of his career shuttling between Toledo and Madrid. Born in Crete, El Greco began as an icon painter, and the head from Simón’s collection has the stark presence of icon art, kneaded by the devotional emotionalism El Greco absorbed from Tintoretto during his years in Italy and gently stretched by his own signature manner. His Redeemer stares heavenward with stunned, porcelain eyes, apparently yearning without hope.

Another great Mannerist painter, Jusepe de Ribera, reversing El Greco’s career trajectory, was born in Valencia province in 1591 but around 1608 left for Naples and made his life in Italy. He started as a Caravaggista, much indebted to the florid carnality and canted overhead light of Caravaggio. His 1648 Saint Jerome, however, shows off his individuated, free-standing manner. His hermit is so physically diminished that it’s hard to distinguish Jerome’s wrinkles and folds of flesh from body hair. His grubby, emaciated hands grasp close to his breast the traditional cross and skull. It’s a portrait of piety in extremis. Like El Greco’s Christ, Jerome looks yonder but without much expectation. Half his face gleams, the other half shrivels into darkness.

This show made me realize that I’ll never like Ribera’s near-contemporary Bartolomé Murillo. The misted contours of his saints and angels and putti and clouds and sheep and all the rest suggest the fluid harmonics of Andrea del Sarto, and, like him, he’s Spain’s equivalent to what Vasari called del Sarto, “the perfect painter.” For me, though, his perfection is soporific. And his most notable follower, Alonso Miguel de Tovar, carried on the tradition in The Divine Shepherdess, where a peaches-and-cream Virgin Mary cozies up to sheep with flowers in their mouths. Two of the bouncy beasts, jaws locked down on roses, stare suspiciously forward as if daring us to giggle.

The secular pictures in the exhibition carry interesting information. An anonymous bullfighting picture from the 1650s doesn’t look nearly as theatrical and organized as the corrida has come to live in our imagination. Groups of spectators, students, and soldiers are neatly squared off, and action is scattered about the ring — toreadors, picadors, a bull and wounded horse, random participants brandishing swords, picks, and capes, plus a gaggle of priests (to administer last rites). Even when it’s far from religious fervor and social bloodletting, Spanish painting carries a visceral surge. The fiery flower pictures of Bartolomé Pérez, for instance, are among the surprises in the exhibition. His razor-lipped tulip blooms look like instruments of predation, and the arrangements suggest the randy turbulence of the mythic figures painted on the urns.

Country air and fine art in Barrington

There is no painting from a postcard for this oil painter from Lake Zurich. He plants himself in the thick of the action — his favorite is a busy city street — with an easel and paints real life.

“We’re not working from a reference,” Radtke says of himself and artists who share his painting style and philosophy. “We’re painting what we see.”

The public will have an opportunity to browse Radtke’s paintings along with the artwork for at least 170 other artists at the 37th annual Art in the Barn event, a juried art show which will take place Sept. 24 and 25 on the grounds of Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital at 450 W. Highway 22, in Barrington.

“It’s a terrific venue,” Radtke said. “It’s in a barn.”

Sharon Vogel, one of the co-chairs of Art in the Barn, explained that the event takes place in large old barns on the property of Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital which was once made up of farmland.

“It really helps the hospital,” Vogel said of the event. “We’re probably one of their biggest fundraisers, but it’s a community event and that’s what we like about it. I mean we have people from all the surrounding communities.”

Most of the artists are from Illinois and surrounding states and they have a variety of different talents, Vogel said. There will be oil and acrylic painters, sketch artists, sculptors, jewelry makers, wood crafters and print makers.

The event might appeal to people who want to decorate their houses, Radke noted.

“You can buy anything at Walmart or any of the big box stores,” Radtke said, “but it’s not as individualized as having your own oil painting.”

Activities include pony rides for kids, and stations for children to make their own paintings and paint pumpkins. There will also be a variety of live music and entertainment, including couples that both play mandolins. On site there will be bratwursts, caramel corn and funnel cakes, she added.

“It’s just a warm, wonderful country atmosphere,” Vogel said.

Art in the Barn is sponsored by the Auxiliary of Good Shepherd Hospital, a group of volunteers that raises money for the hospital that serves the community, Sherry Tomasko, event co-chair, said in an e-mail.

In the past, the Auxiliary has raised funds that have helped Good Shepherd build a new Cardiac Care wing and a new emergency department, according to e-mail information from Faith Semla, an Auxiliary member who handles Art in the Barn publicity for the event.

In 1975, when a group of 10 women, artists and craftsmen put together the first Art in the Barn event, there were 30 artists and 1,500 visitors. That has grown to more than 170 artists and over 6,000 visitors, according to Auxiliary information.

Through the fundraiser, the Auxiliary usually makes about $100,000 for Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital, Vogel said. Over the years, the event has raised more than $2.75 million for the hospital.

While event admission is just $5, vendors pay a fee to exhibit and sell items. There is also a fee for children’s rides. Artists donate 20 percent of their profits to the Auxiliary.

This is Radtke’s third time exhibiting at Art in the Barn. He said he wanted to take part because he has accumulated many paintings over the years. While he has sold many this year, he wants to sell more.

“My goal this year was to go there with small paintings, many unframed, at affordable prices,” he said. He said he planned to sell many of his paintings for less than $100.

Grote energiebedrijven geloven niet in zonne-energie, dus kan het niets wezen

Shell is al eerder uit zonne-energie gestapt. Exxon doet er niets aan. Vele grote energiebedrijven investeren ook liever in kolencentrales. Echter, je verwacht niet van een slachthuis dat ze goed worden in de productie van duurzame vegetarische hamburgers. Bij Shell stroomt olie door de aderen en organisatie. Dit soort maatschappijen zijn als olietankers op de oceaan; moeilijk wendbaar voor snelle koersveranderingen.

Zonne-energie is een sport voor snelle gemakkelijk wendbare en innovatieve ondernemers. De markt verandert snel. Het is soms opkruisen bij tegenwind, maar verder veel wind mee of heerlijk half aan de wind, maar nooit windstil...

Overigens bewijst electronica gigant Sharp, een van ‘s werelds marktleiders op het gebied van zonnepanelen, dat ook grote bedrijven kunnen geloven in zonnepanelen. Bij Sharp begrijpen ze ook dat grootschalige productie helpt om de kostprijs te verlagen: “massa is kassa”, en die massa afzet markt komt er aan. Niet alleen in Japan.

Shell heeft zelf voorspeld dat in 2040 50% van de energie in de wereld zal komen van duurzame bronnen. Meer waarschijnlijk is dat Shell over niet al te lange tijd een ‘winnaar’ uit de zonne-energie markt zal opkopen. Tenslotte zijn enkele van de ‘kleine’ zonnepaneel producenten al uitgegroeid tot respectabele ondernemingen met duizenden medewerkers en een omzet van enkele miljarden per jaar.

Google groeide binnen 10 jaar uit tot een van de grootste bedrijven ter wereld. Dit is de tijd van de nieuwe economie, dus waarom kan er niet zo een zonne-energie gigant ontstaan?

Zonne-energie speelt geen rol in de mondiale energievoorziening

De bijdrage van zonne-energie aan de wereld energiebehoefte is nu nog minder dan 1 procent, maar deze bijdrage kan snel toenemen. Duitsland is als gidsland op weg om te groeien naar een bijdrage uit zonnepanelen van circa 10 procent van de elektriciteitsbehoefte binnen 5 jaar.

En wat in Duitsland kan, kan in andere landen ook. Voor zich snel ontwikkelende economiën heeft het bouwen van grote centrale kolen- of kerncentrales geen zin meer, als zonnepanelen zo snel zo goedkoop worden. Vergelijk de komst van mobiele telefonie in landen die geen (uitgebreid) telefoonnetwerk hadden, zoals India.

Dat netwerk kwam en komt er ook niet meer. En zo kan en zal het ook gaan met zonne-energie. Het maakt de komst van nieuwe grote centrale energie centrales overbodig, omdat decentrale energie-opwekking effectiever, flexibeler en goedkoper is.

De wereldmarkt voor zonne-energie groeide het afgelopen jaar met meer dan 100 procent. Dat deed het ook al in 2008. Een continuering van zo’n logaritmisch groeiscenario van 100 procent per jaar, is overigens voldoende om in 10 jaar de mondiale elektriciteitsbehoefte te dekken.