The World Examining Works

Oh dear!

 

While wandering round St.Agnes' convent in Prague, where there is a most splendid collection of International Gothic art, I was struck by the number of most gruesome martyrdoms and the  buckets of blood. Yesterday was Halloween.

Herewith a few samples...

Tears of blood...

 An unfortunate way to go....in an Edward Gorey sort of way.

What do you expect if you kneel right underneath?

Looking rather stoical with a nail through the head.

Who can He be talking to on his cell phone?

 

Grand Budapest Hotel or Hotel Imperial

    

    We were enchanted by Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel  - a wonderful, over the top extravaganza of a movie -  a mishmash of Mitteleuropa, 20th century history and who knows what else. So we set out in search of somerthing somewhat similar...

Prague not Budapest - and not this building (the hotel in the movie was an artificial construct after all). Anyway it should have had a facade like this... 

But it did have very tall windows.

 though she graces another hotel of the period.

 Such splendid Egyptianate tiles in the hall

not to mention in the dining room where the clock was, oddly, always right.

 Ah, the woodwork and the lights

and the art deco stiatcase

and the servers in those nice extra-long white aprons

 rushing hither and thither...

 

Photos taken in Hotel Pariz, Prague and Art Deco Imperial Hotel Prague.

Ocober 2014

 

 

Veletrzni Palac, Prague - An October Selection

 

The Czech National Gallery was an amazing treat because it contained so much that was unfamiliar to me - lots and lots of artists I'd never heard of before - particularly 19th century Czech ones. There are also a couple of outstanding Klimts. The whole place is huge. I started gathering a collection of dark gems.

Herewith a sampling:

All Soul's Day - I think she is on her way to lay a wreath at the cemetery.

She is tending to the battle-wounded, while Miss Ballgown presides over the chaos.

Oh no! A traffic accident...

Dead, you know...

Beware the water sprite 

and the ghostly hand hovering over your desk.

A film poster from the 20's. A very small prize for anyone working out the exact iconography of this one...

A cops and robbers poster from the same period.

Last of all, a costume hanging to dry in a courtyard from the 1940's - possibly the most haunting  of all the images.