Adelaide Gallery, South Australia.

Every time I am in Adelaide I try to make at least one trip to the Art Gallery. It is in an iconic building on North Terrace and a really nice place to escape the heat or cold depending on the weather. I don't know if photographing art is a good thing or not, but it helps me remember all the beautiful things that I took my time to stand and admire up close. You can see my last visit here with some different collection items to what is below.

I heart these sideburns!

It is also a great place for people to get an understanding on what the environment looked like for the early European immigrants. How they saw things that were very unfamiliar to them. Isaac Whitehead's Sassafras Valley.

This included the indigenous peoples, by Frazer Crawford.

The War Dance.

But there is something about eucalyptus trees that I will never tire of. By H.J Johnson

Love an old bloke with a beard. This one is Sir Henry Parkes by Tom Roberts.

Now it is all about the sculptures.

snakes love.

Bertram MacKennal's Circe

So, there you go the Art Gallery has visited you now.

Modern art vs quality art

Recently the national museum had an exhibition of Mark Rothko. Now I have seen a far amount of art in my time and some I love, some I loathe and others just pass by. Many talented artists don't get realised in life because their style is too strong or too similar to others. Then of course there are times when an artist becomes famous because of who buys it. From my experience and in my opinion this doesn't make a good artist, but makes someone else a lot of money. There are many examples in the art world, in my eyes, of people who become famous through the sale phenomenon and then those that become famous because they are dead and can no longer add to the art world/collections and therfore increases their value. Which of all these categories does Mr Rothko fit into?

For me the sentence about Mozart sums it up. As long as you stop after the word genius.

A bunch of painting bloks and one lady.

When Rothko tried to paint things that exist. You can see his imbalanced nature of perspective.

I think this man and his posture sum up what many people think of Rothko.

I think that Rothko is a poor excuse for a painter, one of those people that was launched by having a tight knit ex-pat group around him and an early influential purchaser of his paintings in the name of Guggenheim. A trend setter will help. There is a message to all struggling artists, find a trend setter and pester them enough to buy your paintings and display them, and you are on easy street. It is also quite evident that Rothko had deteriorating eyesight and could never do fine or detailed work and I guess big slabs of square colours sums up his skill in my eyes, especially that it is ironically called multiforms.

Instead I would prefer people to enjoy the old Masters, full of rich details and livery it is, to me, what art is about. Luckily the National Museum has a good collection of these too, so I pottered off there instead. It is much more fun to see and details are abound.

So many old masters loved dogs.

more dogs

A cow that thinks it is bread

A disappointed cow?

Warsaw rooftops.

The newly refurbished/rearranged National Museum.

Leaving disappointed by the looks of it.

Some night painting from me.

night painting

I like this.

And off on some public transport. Homeward bound.

Roll on Holl-and sights - Delft

So we decided one day to drive in to Delft. Which is the town I actually know the most about in Holland. So that was a good thing. Marty had always wanted to visit Delft as she likes Vermeer and he was born and lived in Delft and is also of course now buried there. I have to admit to being a fan of the Dutch Baroque and the "Golden Age", so I was happy to drive over and see what we could find.
After parking and strolling through a nice maze of streets, we went past the fish market and popped out into the belly of the main square.
We got to see what Delft is, to me anyway, a nice modern shop where all is perfect,
Then next to it is a nice little antique shop there with things that appear used, ice skates, clogs and lots of faux Delft 18th century pottery.
Something else I noticed about Delft is that there are great little details hidden, and if you don't look up, you won't see them. This must be a moon market.
The clouds in the window, the slightly changing bricks and the dog looking down Oudekerkstraat.
To me, if I couldn't translate the word Bijbel, I would think it is a Harry Potter theme store. Makes you think about fictional books.....
Of course there are the more obvious of wall adornments as well.
Sometimes you just have to remember what Den Nederlands is all about..... cows, but I'm not saying Marty is a cow..... or am I?
The different types of old glass are also all over inner Delft. You can tell the age apparently by the difference in thickness top to bottom as glass is actually still liquid and will run down with gravity. Fact.
The spires try to get higher.
Het Noorden the mining engineer pub I spent a bit of time in last time I was in Delft. You can only come being a mining engineer or invited by a member. It is the only faculty in Delft that have their own pub. Gluck Auf!

As we prepared to leave Delft, Marty wanted to see the location where the Vermeer's famous painting "View of Delft". So the first picture is the day we were there
The second is the painting by Vermeer. Well at least the clouds stayed the same!
So that is Delft, quite a pretty little city and now certainly becoming "trendy" with the students and ex-students staying or returning to live. I recommend it especially if you want to see the spiritual home of the Dutch Golden Age.