I received a nasty message from Sandia Outfitters HQ letting me know to I need to put a more positive spin on the death march daily tours or we won't be getting any victims...I MEAN CLIENTS...to be hiring us. So let's look at a typical day of touring from Tortuous Tours in Porto.
9:30pm on Wednesday Night. Gonna crash soon to be ready for the next day.
4:00 AM on Thursday. Still Dark.
6:00 AM Light starts to show
By 9:00 AM there is a great light shining from the east
We head into the historic center of town. We have a tour scheduled of the Boursa, the historic Chamber of Commerce building. Built in the late 1800's it is in the style of buildings we see in Paris and Vienna of the same period.
So much of the artwork we've seen in Portugal, particularly those in the monarchical palaces and the churches has been (in my opinion) very mediocre and stylized. Nothing that was moving me. The paintings done in this building were something totally different. They showed genuine emotion and personality.
This set of portraits really caught my eye.
This and another wall were portraits of every Chamber President from the origination of the building to the present. Looking at them closely, I was amazed at how much individual personality showed through.
I was also amazed at how similar the style of painting was. Asking our guide, I found out they were all done by just two painters and not that long ago. They went back to old pictures, photos, etc. to find various images of those who were no longer alive, read history about them and them created new composite portraits. How cool is that!
There were other cool architectural features to the building. This floor has a parquet that is a three dimensional trompe d'oeil.
In the neo-classical style of the period you made as complete representations of older periods as possible. This room is the Moorish Room and has exact replicas of calligraphy from the Koran as famous mosques.
By the way, this is a commercial building and you can rent this room for a wedding for just $35,000. Keep that in mind if one of your daughter's is planning a big wedding.
We've been considering taking the historic trolley system.
Until I saw the masses of other tourists who have the same idea.
Our next major stop was the Ingreja Sao Francisco (San Francisco church)
Sigh, yes another gigantic monument to Baroque/Rococo excess.
What's not to like about the life like representation of martyrs being beheaded?
But within all the excess there are the occasional gems.
A LOT going on here.
There is the usual overload of what I call 'spiritual brain dead looks'.
This is the predominant facial expression you see on the vast majority of people in both paintings and sculptures. I am sure it is supposed to capture the expression of oneness with God but they leave me feeling like they are brain dead.
However in this scene we see something different.
How that's pretty cool. And how about these? Tell me you don't recognize these expressions.
Tell me these aren't people checking out stuff on the cell phones...centuries before they even existed!
Then there were some great pictures in the museum of the church. Unfortunately the lighting was such, I could not get good pictures of most. But I liked the softness of expression this commander's face and the detail of the gloves.
We headed to the Nova Gaia side of the water where I did a Zoom meeting in an outdoor cafe (very digital nomad-ish)
And ended the day where we began.
3 comments:
I mean, it's not baroque unless it's excessive.
And you're right about those gloves, that's amazing detail.
I like the commentary about the expressions. I will remember that the next time I view art or even photographs. But the picture that make me dizzy was the parquet floor. Could you even walk on it?
Porto does seem to offer a lot of eye candy for the buck!
Post a Comment