When I was in London a few months ago, I had to go a few times to the National gallery in Trafalgar Square to see one of my favorite paintings, this lion hunt by Rubens. It is unfinished but I would like to think that he saw it as finished as it is- really bold and anticipates the romantics like Gericault and Delacroix by about 100 years.
It is a really fun piece to look at- the energy in this painting.
Below is a little sketch i did in my notebook, normally I just look at this painting for a long time.
In the nice restaurant at the gallery, there is this fantastic almost graffiti like piece that Paula Rego painted, based on the collection in the National Gallery. Her work incorporated the few images of females in the paintings. It is a long beautiful piece but you cannot get a postcard or anything, these are just a few sketches. It rifts off of Spanish/Portuguese painted tiles and always makes me think of that imaginary Synagogue that Salman Rushdie describes in The Moor's Last Sigh where the main character's mother is interpreting the tiles and telling the future.
Anyways, she is a fascinating artist (to me at least) and her paintings deal with childhood taboos, story telling she does a bit of it all.
click this link to see a minute or two of Paula talking about here studio and how she works
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