Sirius XM

Tags

covid, elections, Fiona, paintings, PEI, virtue

Yesterday I got the Sirius XM system for my car, I was tired of having bad reception and very poor radio choice. Preachy radio hosts and always the same music over and over.

Sirius has a great choice of music and no commercial and no news, I mean at least I can get the news I want like NPR and BBC World service. The sound is also very good.

Today we bought SONOS speakers for the house so we can use them with Sirius, again the sound is very good, it is a big improvement.

I got the car tuned-up for Winter and bought new Winter tires replacing the 11 yrs old ones I had. In the Spring I may get new Summer tires the current ones are 5 yrs old.

So the last cruise ship left us a few days ago and the next day all the tourist restaurants closed, so it makes for a much quieter city now and the evenings really give the city a small town feel.

The municipal election came and went yesterday, it was a dismal affair from the point of view of public involvement. PEI has a national reputation as a place where voter turnout is always very high, around 84% or so about. Well this campaign was super quiet, no lawn signs, only one Q&A with mayoral candidates, no debates.

Of the 57 municipal councils on the Island 16 had no candidates to replace the municipal council leaving office including mayors. So now the Province has to find people to be appointed to serve, not an easy task, no one wants those jobs it seems. So they will be under trusteeship of the Minister of Municipal Affairs until some people can be found to fill those positions. This has never happened before and it is a puzzle, what happened?

The voter turn out is also very low, I voted early and was the only one at the polling station. I went back the day before the election and spoke with the returning officer who confirmed that indeed it was very quiet, abnormally so. The Official count in Charlottetown gives 47% total voter turnout. Some Councillors were acclaimed no opponents, others won with a handful of votes. This does not bode well for our democracy, but it seems people have become cynical and have lost faith in our politicians. In other municipality it is as low as 33% turnout, really not acceptable but there you go.

On the Covid front it seems that more and more people are affected, because people in the large part are vaccinated and or boosted, many are sick for 2 to 3 days and it is mild. Nonetheless we are really careful and we are getting our third booster shot, just in case.

The clean up from FIONA is continuing around the Island and it may take more months until Spring probably to complete the job. Nice to know that PEI was totally unprepared for this storm, no emergency plans, no generators at gas stations or pumping stations. Critical infrastructure totally vulnerable, politicians absent from the scene. Why you ask, well the short answer is; That’s the Island Way. Sad but true.

This week is Remembrance Day, Le Jour du Souvenir, it usually speaks more to the First World War 1914-1918, but nowadays the veterans we have are from the war in Afghanistan, the longest war Canada has been involved in, 11 years, with no results to show for it.

Finally I always like to look at paintings of the 16th or 17th century for all the hidden meaning and symbolism. One painting I saw recently was of a girl with a basket of eggs, she dropped it and some eggs are broken. Standing near her is an older women pointing and irate at the girl, the older woman is speaking to a man and is denouncing the girl. But is this about broken eggs? Only 1 broken out of several dozen, why the fuss?

Well the question is what do broken eggs mean in this case? The painting is called Broken Eggs, by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1725-1805.

Well the broken eggs mean Lost Virtue, the girl lost her virtue possibly to the young man and the old woman is irate because of this fact. Even the little boy as a side glance as if to say; oh she is so naughty.

Van Gogh 360

Tags

exhibit, paintings, PEI, Van Gogh

The Exhibit Van Gogh 360 made it to Charlottetown PEI. It is housed in the Convention/ballroom of the Delta Hotel. The number 360 refers to degrees because this exhibit is a projections on walls and floor of the paintings of Van Gogh, giving the spectator the impression of being inside the painting, part of it.

A very nice introduction to Van Gogh and his life is given at the beginning, so the spectator knows more on the artist and his background. Van Gogh suffered from the same rejection so many painters and sculptors of the time faced. Think of Monet, Rodin, Gaugin etc… all working in a society on the cusp of huge societal changes and facing a blunt refusal by art critics to accept them. Many were Impressionists the term itself was coined as a mocking all these artists and was then recuperated by said artists as a badge of honour. Though many faced poverty and difficult lives today they are all seen as great artists.

Poor Vincent he was a fragile human and suffered from what is today defined as a bi-polar condition. Then no modern treatment was available and he suffered in silence, his doctor prescribed Digitalis which did not help at all, until the day at 37 when he shot himself. I knew that Van Gogh was at one point an evangelical preacher ministering to the poor, he had a deep social conscience, his younger brother Theo, an art dealer, would all his life help out Vincent. In death Van Gogh became appreciated for his art work, how sad.

Once you do the introduction room, you move into the great room to see this projection of his work to music, which was extremely well mounted, very relaxing to watch and entertaining.

Here are some pictures, I took. Do remember that the pictures are giant projections.

Flowering almond trees is one of my favourite paintings by Van Gogh.

Still Life paintings

Tags

baroque, Dutch masters, Fish, London, paintings

Dutch painting of the Baroque age, by

Willem Claesz Heda in 1635, our friend Reg Porter who is an award winning historian living in PEI loves books and paintings and I am borrowing this image from his page. regporter.com

This painting is in the RIJKS Museum in Amsterdam, a place that is splendid and newly renovated. The Dutch a protestant merchant nation, truly revolutionized painting with the Protestant Reformation, abandoning the strict school of painting dictated by the Vatican. They had no reasons to follow such narrow confines and invented their own style based on the life in the Netherlands. I always loved those paintings, the detail alone is magnificent, look at the artistry of painting a tablecloth so real you believe you can touch it. The same can be said of the food, the glassware, pewter. The light also in such paintings is always very natural you can almost if you look carefully tell what time of the day it is. In this painting I would guess it is around 1pm.

You can also see a lot of Dutch painters in London, the political alliance between House Of Orange, King William III and Queen Mary, the trade links between the Low countries and England saw lots of exchanges at many levels.

The Fishmonger Hall in London a Georgian Style building next to London Bridge has many paintings by Arnold Von Hacken, here are some of his still life of fish and seafood. He like other painters of the 17th century worked for bankers, merchants, corporations like the Fishmongers who would hire painters to decorate their Halls or Mansions.

The paintings are entitled Wonders of the deep, depicting fish from the rivers of England, the North Sea or Channel. Each painting is a large canvas and is rich in detail, the fish look freshly caught

There are many more better known painters of this era, Vermeer, Van Ruisdael, Rembrandt, Steen, Hals, but they all were in the business of teaching or painting for patrons who gave them commissions. Maybe by looking at such paintings you may think of a fish dish to enjoy. It was Samuel Pepys in his famous diaries describes the barrel of oysters he would eat at lunch in a pub in London near Whitehall where he worked. All was very fresh since the boats came up the river each day and deliver their catch, somewhat like they do here in PEI.

David Roberts, R.A.

Tags

culture, Egypt, history, Jordan, paintings, Roberts, UK

Back in 1989 in Cairo, Egypt, I started to collect David Roberts work. At the time I did not know much about Roberts and I liked what I saw because it was an historical recollection of what Egypt was like as an old Kingdom then under Ottoman rule and as seen by tourists on the Grand Tour.

David Roberts was a Scottish painter, born in Stockbridge which is part of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland in 1796 and died in London in 1864.  Stockbridge is an elegant neighbourhood filled with Georgian and Victorian terraced houses.

Roberts is especially known for The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia, a prolific series of detailed lithograph prints of Egypt and the Near East that he produced from sketches he made during long sojourn in the region.

Roberts was a member of the Royal Academy.

Apprenticed for seven years to be a house painter and decorator. During this time he studied art in the evenings. After his apprenticeship was complete, Roberts’s first paid job came in the summer of 1815, when he moved to Perth to serve as foreman for the redecoration of Scone Palace, where Scottish Kings were crowned until 1296.

His next job was to paint scenery for James Bannister’s circus on North College Street. This was the beginning of his career as a painter and designer of stage scenery.

In 1822 the Coburg Theatre, now the Old Vic in London, offered Roberts a job as a scenic designer and stage painter. He sailed from Leith with his wife Margaret and their six-month-old daughter Christine and settled in London. After working for a while at the Coburg Theatre, Roberts moved to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane to create dioramas and panoramas.

While he built his reputation as a fine artist, Roberts’s stage work had also been commercially successful. Commissions from Covent garden for opera stage sets came regularly.

The painter J.M. William Turner persuaded Roberts to abandon scene painting and devote himself to becoming a full-time artist. Roberts set sail for Egypt on 31 August 1838. His intent was to produce drawings that he could later use as the basis for the paintings and lithographs to sell to the public. Egypt was much in vogue at this time, and travellers, collectors and lovers of antiquities were keen to buy works inspired by the East or depicting the great monuments of ancient Egypt.

Roberts made a long tour in Egypt, Nubia, the Sinai, the Holy Land, Jordan and Lebanon. Throughout, he produced a vast collection of drawings and watercolour sketches.

Muhammad Ali Pasha received Roberts in Alexandria on 16 May 1839, shortly before his return to the UK.

The scenery and monuments of Egypt and Holy Land were fashionable but had hitherto been hardly touched by British artists, and so Roberts quickly accumulated 400 subscription commitments, with Queen Victoria being subscriber No. 1. Her complete set is still in the Royal Collection. The timing of publication just before photographs of the sites became available proved fortuitous.

I bought my first Roberts in an old shop just off Tahrir Square in Cairo and near J. Groppi pastry shop on Talat Harb Sq.. The first one, Plate 238 entitled Cairo from the Gate of the Citizenib, looking towards the desert of Suez. Published in London 1 Dec 1856 by Day & Son, 17 Gate Street, London. I did learn that Roberts did give some fancy names to sites when he was not sure what the actual name was as in this case it is the Sayeda Zeinab Mosque and gate. Also because he belonged to the Orientalist school of painters, romanticize views to make them more attractive to his European viewers and clients. Many of his paintings and lithographs were made as advertisement to promote the Grand Tour to wealthy people who could travel in style for 3 months to a year. The London Illustrated News used a lot of his work to promote areas of the British Empire one could safely visit.

When I was posted to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan I started to look for lithographs of the Holy Land to add to my collection. One is entitled Jerusalem, from the Mount of Olives. By today’s standard it would be difficult to see this view given that old Jerusalem is surrounded not by modern suburbs.

From Jordan, I have views of Petra and of the roman city of Jerash. In all 10 lithographs. It is interesting to see them and examine them, so you get a view of the world some 180 years ago and how it appeared to people like Roberts.

Memories of 1969

Tags

60's, culture, heritage, history, Malraux, Musée d'orsay, paintings, Paris, sculpture

In 1969 my parents and my siblings and I went to Europe for the first time. I was 13 yrs old. My father was an hotel executive and worked for a large hotel chain linked then to United Airlines. The itinerary was Ireland, France and the UK.  My younger siblings were 10 and 7 yrs old. It was very exciting, back then very few people travelled to Europe unless you had the means to do so, the age of mass tourism was yet to come.

I remember Ireland was still an impoverished country, very green and agricultural, lots of sheep everywhere. Apparently to this day there are more sheep 5.6 million in Ireland than people 4.8 million. We flew from Montreal on Aer Lingus to Shannon and then drove to Dublin.

We then flew to Paris and stayed at the Hotel du Palais d’Orsay which in 1969 was part of the old Railway station of the same name, located across from Le Louvre and the Tuileries gardens. The original old Palais was burned by the Communards in 1871 like so many other buildings and Palaces in Paris during this period of revolution to put an end to the Imperial regime of Napoleon III, a vain man who came to power in a coup with lots of populist ideas, it all ended badly for him. He fled to London with his wife Empress Eugénie. The Communards wanted a Republican regime so that the goals of the revolution of 1789 would finally come to pass instead of having one royalist regime after another. This is the period of Les Misérables from the famous book by Victor Hugo.

The Gare d’Orsay was built in 1899 to accommodate the rail line from Orléans to Paris and with it came a grand hotel. The new buildings had to match the grand buildings around them like the Palais de la Légion d’Honneur next door and the Louvre across the Seine river.

The Musée d’Orsay today formerly the gare and hotel. The hotel portion is on the right of the picture.

My father booked us into the Hotel, he wanted to see it because his company was in negotiation to purchase the site, the railway was being discontinued and the French government wanted to get rid of it, sort of a modernizing craze for Paris. The President then was General De Gaulle who would resign, pushed out by demonstrations. The Minister of Culture was André Malraux (1901-1976) and he was against modernization. Malraux was a novelist, author of La Condition humaine which won him the prestigious Prix Goncourt. He became famous in France for his anti-Fascist and anti-colonialist views  and for being an adventurer.

Le Corbusier was the architect hired to build the new convention centre and hotel. Very different from the whole neighbourhood and I disapproved of this plan, I could not understand why anyone thought this was an improvement but it was the 1960’s.

My father thought it was a fantastic idea, who needs all this old stuff anyway. He also famously said: Once you see one cathedral you have seen them all.

A few months after our trip to Paris we learned that Malraux idea prevailed and the whole concept was shelved for good. The Gare d’Orsay became this beautiful museum with its important collections and the old hotel transformed into more museum space while preserving all of its architectural details and famous chandeliers.

The front door with its 1950’s look.

The entrance Hall lobby with its grand staircase back then, it was impressive.

The former hotel, Salon des Fêtes with its garland chandeliers.

These great spaces are used for exhibits and for receptions, keeping intact the beautiful decor.

the former restaurant of the hotel with modern furniture to serve the public in the museum.

The great clock in the main hall of the former railway station, now the central exhibition hall of the museum.

I am glad that André Malraux prevailed I think it would have been a mistake to demolish this beautiful building.

La Toussaint

Tags

La Toussaint, nature morte, paintings, photos

La Toussaint or All Saints day is 1 November on the liturgical calendar. The Feast day of all saints in the Catholic Church. Then All Souls day is 2 November,  a day to commemorate all those who departed this life.

So I thought I would post some nature morte or still life paintings which I always like as a category of paintings in Museums. It requires a great deal of dexterity to be able to put on canvas such complex subject matter or to compose a tableau for the camera.

 

 

 

 

 

A painting

Tags

AGCC, art., Canada., docent, guide, ingres, Museums, NGOC, paintings

Years ago in my first job as a guide-docent at the National Gallery of Canada I came across many paintings from as early as 1200 to today, many periods and artists from Europe and North America. We were trained by the Education dept., as part of our training we were also advised on what to expect from visitors. We were told to be careful with children under the age of 11 and with children between 11 and 16. We were told what not to show and how to avoid controversy or questions which might be delicate to answer. The real concern was not the kids but the parents, some parents who have a certain world view or philosophy of life might object to art depicting topics like nudity, violence, religious or biblical scenes, young naked children, dark colours or modern contemporary art like the surrealist art of Dali, Picasso, Magritte.

So what do you show exactly beyond a vase with flowers and more importantly how do you avoid such art on the walls as you walk through the galleries.

This painting is a case in point,  it is in the National Gallery in Ottawa on the Second floor. The subject is Actaea the Nymph on the sea, by Frederic Lord Leighton, in his Pre-Raphaelite style so loved by Queen Victoria.

So we were instructed by the Education Dept to avoid that corridor and if not, see if we could not attract the attention of the children to the opposite wall where one could look at Italian and French landscapes. Did you notice that Actaea is looking at dolphins? Kids love dolphins, they fascinate them. So one day I had a class of grade 5 student, so around 10 years old, also with our group was their teacher and one parent who appeared indifferent which is often the case.

I was trying to get this group of 20 kids to look at a painting by Camille Corot, The bridge at Narni.

We had just walked by the Venus by Lucas Cranach the Elder and one boy asked me why was the Lady naked.

So back to Actaea, while I do my best to speak of the Corot painting and the ruined bridge at Narni, I suddenly notice that I lost my audience, the kids are all looking at the dolphins. I look at the teacher and ask, what should I do? Teacher says; you better explain the dolphins. The children were oblivious to the naked Nymph and all they wanted to know was the names of the dolphins and where they could see them. Now that was a tough question to answer. After that episode I decided that whatever was in the Museum I would simply present and give honest answers to children’s questions. I have found that they are perfectly happy with that approach.

Kids are fascinated at that age by things they see and are trying to understand  and make it fit in their world view, which is completely different from the adult world.   Renaissance paintings with Biblical scenes of violence as a moral lesson, also attracts them, what they want to know is how was it done, not the violence itself.

Currently at the Art Gallery of the Confederation Centre I have not had this dilemma, with one exception recently. We currently have a study in our Summer show one art work the artist took as a subject La grande baigneuse de Valpinçon by Ingres and modernized or updated it.

So last week I had two groups of 13 year old students and the boys found it quite funny, sort of the funny embarrassed laughter of boys in puberty.

This is where it gets tricky as children enter puberty and their world changes drastically, no longer children but teenagers. Luckily I have lots of other works to show them and start discussions around. Never a dull moment at the Gallery.

Music I listen to

Tags

NGC, paintings, PEI, Robert Harris

Often when I write a post on this blog, I will listen to music from the Internet Radio usually from a European Station, in Germany MDR or Switzerland or the Dutch NRK, sometimes from WETA, WCRI or Classical Wyoming in the US.

Recently I was listening to Roman Carnaval Ouverture by Berlioz, Mahler 6 Symphony, Variation on a French Mountain Air by Vincent D’Indy, Handel’s Sarabande and gigue or Glazunov Waltz no.2 or Dvorak Symphonic variations, among other things playing.

A bit eclectic but a nice mix to inspire.

Recently MAGAZINE the internet publication of the National Gallery of Canada had an article on a famous painting by Robert Harris that I presented to visitors at the NGC many times. It has been restored recently by Curator Tasia Bulger for the first time in 88 years. A Meeting of the School Trustees, painted in 1885. A scene in a typical one room school house which was a feature in rural PEI for many years until 40 years ago. Robert Harris often used his wife Elizabeth Putnam as a model in his paintings as is the case here. Another relative, his uncle Joseph Stretch of Long Creek PEI is the man sitting with his fist on the table looking stern. The teacher, a woman, in a conservative rural environment at the end of the 19th century is seen as the educated outsider, trying to convince the farmers/trustees of the need for their support for education. The conflict in this scene though it was some 132 years ago, could have happened just last week, again the school question was discussed on the Island very publicly and the old conflict between rural and urban area surfaced.

For a full description click on the link below;

http://www.ngcmagazine.ca/features/in-the-spotlight-conserving-a-meeting-of-the-school-trustees-by-robert-harris#Comments

This is what the painting looks like now, with the old yellow varnish removed. 

Born in Wales in 1849, Robert Harris’ family moved to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island in 1856, where he was raised. He studied painting in Boston, London, and Paris, and spent most of his adult life working as a portrait artist in Montreal. Following the successful reception of his large-scale group portrait, The Fathers of Confederation (1883), which was destroyed in 1917 in the fire of the Parliament building in Ottawa, Harris became interested in creating a painting for the newly founded National Gallery of Canada, which had just begun purchasing works of art for its collection.

It was suggested by the late Director of the Art Gallery of the Confederation Centre, Moncrieff Williamson in his book, Island Painter: The Life of Robert Harris (1849–1919), that the subject matter was based on an actual conversation in August 1885 between Harris and Long Creek schoolteacher, Kate Henderson, during a visit by Harris to his family in PEI.

The name “Kate Henderson” is written on a booklet on the desk, along with “Pine Creek School” — a fictional school based on the one-room schoolhouse in Long Creek, PEI. However, a deeper look into PEI’s Annual Public School and Education Reports and census data from the 1880s reveals that no women taught in Long Creek at that time, and the sole Catherine Henderson teaching in PEI was only recorded as active between 1876 and 1883, in Alma, Crapaud, Little York, and Poplar Grove.

Remarkably, this Catherine Henderson was born in Lot 31, a portion of which is now North Wiltshire, PEI . In terms of subject choice and the structured, academic treatment, the painting was in part painted to catch the eye of the recently founded National Gallery of Canada.

 

Caroline L. Daly

Tags

Art Gallery, art., Canada., caroline louisa Daly, CCOA, Charlottetown, paintings, PEI, sketches

There will be a Vernissage at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery this Saturday 28 January at 7pm. Featuring the sketches and water colours of Caroline Louisa Daly (1832-1893)

She was the daughter of Sir Dominick Daly, Lieutenant-Governor of Prince Edward Island from 1854-1859. The family lived at Government House also known as Fanningbank in Charlottetown.

The Official Residence was built in 1834 and the first Lieutenant-Governor moved in and died promptly in 1835 of pneumonia,the house is on an expose piece of land facing the Strait of Northumberland, very windy and was not then well insulated.

When the Daly family moved in some 20 years later the conditions in the house had been improved. Caroline who was born in Montreal in 1832 when her father, an Irish native of Galway, was serving as Colonial Secretary in Lower-Canada. Sir Dominick would have a long career in the Imperial Service and the family would move all over the world as he was promoted from post to post.

Caroline documented where they lived and what she saw in her sketches and water colours. She left us a wonderful record of life on the Island between 1854-59. We have precious few artistic rendering and documented memories of Fanningbank and thanks to her and her father we have a link to the past. The curator of the exhibit Paige Matthie also did a wonderful job of clearing up a long standing mistake on attribution of those sketches. Many decades ago poorly done research had attributed the work to two fellows also named Daly who lived in Montreal. They had never visited the Island and there was no link between the artwork and them but for some unknown reason it was assumed they were the authors.

The Daly family has also given us more works by Caroline Louisa Daly and other documents related to Sir Dominick.

This is truly a beautiful exhibit and it is opening in a few days.

Fanningbank in Winter

If you look closely you will see on the right in the background the steeple of St-James Presbyterian and people skating on Government pond.

What is interesting, because of her water colours and sketches of Fanningbank during renovations in the 1930’s and later, these art works were used as a reference for historians and architects.

The Ice Sugar Cone in front of Momontrency Falls near Quebec City

Countryside PEI

another picture from the header

Tags

art., culture, Dresden, paintings

My header is a view of the dome of the Albertinum Museum in Dresden, Saxony, Germany, also known as the SKD or Staaliche Kunstsaamlungen Dresden. It is a group of several museums in the city all situated within a short walking distance from each other.

The Kunstkammer, which was situated in the Dresden royal palace. Based on late Renaissance thinking, the Kunstkammer was a universal collection with an encyclopaedic approach and a strong focus on various instruments and technological innovations. The Dresden collections received its unique character, which has been valid until today, through the art spirit of two electors: August the Strong (1679-1733, Elector of Saxony since 1694, King of Poland since 1697) and his son August III (1696-1763, Elector and King since 1733). Ever since taking office, August the Strong supported the systematic development of his holdings. He passionately collected porcelain and precious items. Around 1720, the first special collections – among them the Grüne Gewölbe, the Skulpturensammlung and the Kupferstich-Kabinett – were arranged under his supervision. We have to thank his son for the extension of the old master’s gallery, which became one of the most important galleries in Europe through the purchase of entire collections in the mid-18th century. Last but not least, the Dresden collections range among those which were first opened to a limited audience. After the disastrous end of the Seven Years’ War (1756-63), decades of stagnation followed for the collections. Only were these difficulties surmounted with the collection reform designed by state secretary Bernhard August von Lindau and the construction of the new gallery building near the Zwinger (architect Gottfried Semper) in the mid-19th century. After the end of monarchy, the “Königliche Sammlungen für Kunst und Wissenschaft” (Royal Collections of Art and Science) were transformed into the “Staatliche Sammlungen für Kunst und Wissenschaft” (State Collections for Art and Science).
However, the character of the museum institution did not change and the scientific collections as well as the state library still belonged to the group. The museums of Dresden were integrated into the system of art robbery by the Nazis after 1933. From 1939 onwards, the gallery directors were also responsible for Hitler’s “Sonderauftrag Linz” (Special Commission Linz). Dresden was fire-bombed twice in the night of 14-15 February 1945, there was absolutely no military reason for this attack by the British since Dresden as a University and Cultural Town with no military value. Most of its population was burned to death in their beds and the city reduced to ashes. To see it today you would never believe that the city was completely destroyed in 1945 some 3 months before the end of the War.

The majority of the art works was saved, because they had been previously evacuated from Dresden, but all the buildings were damaged to a great extent. After the end of the war, trophy commissions of the Red Army seized/stole the art works and transported them to the Soviet Union. The surprising return of the paintings in 1955/56 as well as the return of the majority of the remaining holdings in 1958 enabled the Dresden collections to build on with their past.

Wonderful museums, completely restored in recent years due to the reunification of Germany, I first saw Dresden in 1998, the city was in full restoration mode, incredible work going on, today it is a gem to behold. The city reeks of artworks and fine Porcelain, Meissen is just a few kilometres down the road and the Kings of Saxony loved fine Porcelain and devoted huge amounts of money in producing it, the museum in the Zwinger Palace is overwhelming.

Restoration work is almost done in Dresden. I just love to visit this wonderful city, half way between Berlin and Munich in the Eastern part of Germany on the Elba River.

No other painting has influenced our idea of Baroque Dresden as the vedute “Dresden seen from the right banks of the river Elbe below the bridge Augustus”, which was created by the Venetian artist Bernardo Bellotto in 1748.