When I woke, Keith had been to the bus station to buy our tickets to Torrox Costa, and he said that an email had come for me, sent after school had finished for the year. I will think about it when I have a chance to put everything into perspective. There is too much to do and experience here to worry any more about next year.
After a quick breakfast in the hostel dining room, trying to avoid the sneezing of the very unwell German woman we packed our backpacks and left them in the reception office for the morning then headed off to discover Picasso.
The Picasso Museum is here because Picasso was born in Málaga . The first rooms had examples of his early work. At fifteen he was painting realistic studies which were amazing, under the influence of his father who was an academic painter. One of the paintings showed a child with a doll, and it was quite an arresting piece because the child was looking full on at the viewer. Most of the pieces were donated by Picasso´s daughter-in-law and grandson, so are not representative of all his works and include studies and pieces that appeared to be virtually doodles. Perhaps at some point a famous artist may produce anything and it will be considered fantastic. Nevertheless, it was fascinating to see such a wide range of paintings from the traditional through to some that were stylised symbols for ideas and some that looked slap dash. His time in Madrid and Paris introduced him to new and old ideas and other painters. He experimented with cubism, collage and realism in which items are strangely juxtaposed. A 'Portrait of Olga' has a table cloth on her head as a mantilla, not such an odd idea for people like us who are used to improvising costumes, but apparently avant-garde at the time. Another of 'Mother and Child' had Olga again. She is recognisable as a woman with a giant baby, but the shapes created by light and shade, and the reduction of detail until a monolithic sculptured effect is achieved, is a Picasso stage that I had never seen before. Being beautiful or one of Picasso's lovers was no guarantee of looking good in a painting, and we were surprised to read the information panels describing pieces as looking as if a child had painted them. Although Keith was thinking that, and we read that Picasso had said that he spent years learning to paint like a child, I felt that there was something more complex going on in the paintings and drawings we saw. In some paintings, such as 'Bust of a Woman with Arms Crossed Behind Her Head', there seemed to be a disregard for women as individuals or as anything beyond the physical, and a combination of symbols for body parts, albeit in novel positions and compositions, sufficed. Even in my favourite painting, 'Bather', which oozes movement and joie de vivre, it is the colour and fluidity of the lines that create the effect. The body, in typical Picasso style, is perfect for expressing the feeling of being tossed by the waves and in a powerful element when you swim in the sea. Actually I thought that the woman in that was perfect in being represented as what we think of as 'Picasso style' because it made you feel the strength of the waves and the experience of being in an unknown powerful element. As you can see, we had plenty to talk about and we really enjoyed this museum. There were sculptures and ceramics as well and there was no question that Picasso was a very talented artist who challenged traditional styles and then each of his own experimental phases as well.
What we really spent our time on and absolutely loved at the Picasso Museum was the exhibition of work by Max Ernst. Here was an artist with an intellectual approach to his art and the finest of skills and techniques. Not a single line looked slapdash. His 1927 ‘The Horde’ which is lines creating shapes and spaces, is meticulously done and uses colour to enhance the threatening idea of a horde and the sense that women are being carried off and that torture is going on. His natural history drawings were amazing, and so detailed and focused on certain parts, such as the eye of a fish, that the creatures became something else almost surreal.
There was a strange little story of how his pink parrot, a bird he was particularly fond of, died the day that his sister was born and that in his child mind the two events became inexplicably linked. Certainly much of his work plays around with the human form being attached to birds head or feet, and combinations of other creatures and humans also feature in his art. No doubt studying psychology, philosophy and philology at the University of Bonn helped him to overcome early neurosis and cultivate new ones.
Ernst took the Dadaist movement from Zurich to Cologne and his whole life was one of knowing and working with famous artists who were developing new movements in modern art. It also is a catalogue of withdrawing from modern art movements, sometimes because of loyalty to artistic friends who were on the outer. Life was not straightforward for artists in the late 19th and 20th centuries. He painted 17 murals in his poet friend, Paul Eluard’s house – what a gift that was.
Ernst invented some artistic techniques, one of which was collage using parts of 18th century catalogue illustrations along with surprising and inventive additions of his own. He augmented this with frottage, which is when a graphite rubbing is made on a textured material, creating a strange atmosphere which he said was to increase the ability of the mind to hallucinate so that looking at it, visions would occur and you would see into you inner mind. He illustrated many books as well as exhibiting widely and winning many artistic awards. His works were confiscated by the Nazis and in 1939 he was interned in France as an enemy alien. It was through the intersession of Paul Eluard, the owner of all those murals, that he was released.
Another technique which Ernst developed was called oscillation, and involved putting paint in a tin with a hole in it and swinging it around. He then painted lines in association with the drips. This is a technique that Jackson Pollock took us, but as usual, Ernst moved on from it. He started to explore the unconscious and made films on this and other topics such as space. One of his later works is a really beautiful oil painting on a cosmic theme with blues, whites and reds creating colours, textures and shapes that really seem to be evolving in front of your eyes.
We thought that his work was amazing and we could understand what he was thinking with each of his artistic changes and developments. There was excellent information in English about his life and also about each piece.
Time had slipped away, so our visit to the cathedral was brief. The building is so surrounded by others that it was difficult to appreciate it fully. Inside it was very beautiful, with a multitude of chapels around the outsides. Each chapel seemed to be a work of art, and for the first time I realised that that is exactly what they are, created in different eras under the guidance of architects. Famous sculptors of the day were commissioned for the carving and figures and nothing had proceeded under the guidance of a committee. Some chapels had the feeling that they had been designed by the interior decorators who also specialised in formal rooms in palaces. A rather lovely touch was in one chapel where an uncle and a nephew, both archbishops, were shown carved on top of their mausoleums on either side of a chapel. They were reclining but leaning up on their elbows as if they were on a school camp having a chat after 'lights out'.
In the 17th century the choir stalls were completed with an amazing wall of detailed wooden sculptures of the saints by the brilliant Andalusian sculptor, Pedro de Mena. Each saint is depicted with an identifying accessory as well as with the name below. It looked as if each one was ready to step out of the panels and walk away down the church. 
There were some exceptionally beautiful painted wooden sculptures.
The whole place was divided into parts and had the feel of a gallery as much as of a church. We raced through the little museum, realising that we had only seen a small part of the works of art that the church had amassed. It is interesting to consider the effect of exhibited wealth and beauty in a church on the people who attend. For some it would be an obscenity in the face of poverty and death for the populace and for others it would have been the only chance to collectively experience man made art and beauty. Certainly some churches have seemed over the top, while others have not, so perhaps both thoughts are influential in our reactions.
We were a little alarmed that the local bus we were to take to the bus station was not listed as arriving soon. Luckily one that was not going anywhere suddenly transformed into the one we wanted, and we were back on time for the one we were to catch to Torrox Costa. Sometimes walking is less stressful and much easier!
We drove along the coast, past villages with a multitude of apartment blocks that are used by holiday makers from Northern Europe as well as Spanish people from cities such as Madrid and Granada. The Sierra Nevada lies like twisting snakes on our left, with the ever present snow caps of the highest peaks shining in the sun like halos. White houses dotted the slopes and, as the land ran towards the sea, hideous plastic covered greenhouses dominated the view but allowed for tropical fruits and for summer crops to be produced all year round.
We were surprised to see that even the humble potato was grown in black plastic covered rows, as strawberries are in Australia. Fertile soil, eroded from the mountains, and caught in ravines and on the plains allows some crops to be planted three times a year.
We were going to stay on a mountain with couch surfers, Jane and Brian. The bus let us off in Torrox Costa, and we waited outside the supermarket, as instructed. They soon emerged with their shopping and we all piled into the car for the twenty minute drive to their home. They are a delightful, lively couple with great senses of humour and we had fun chatting as we drove home with them. They are English, but have lived in Spain in the country on a mountain just out of Cómpeta for the last nine years or so. Their house was reached up a steep drive where their grandson was picking olives for pocket money. Olives are taken to the co-op, and are sold by the kilo for oil. Regular farmers must wait until the oil is sold to be paid, which may be well into the next year, but casual sellers like Jamie are paid on the spot.
We were greeted by three beautiful and well behaved dogs – Pepper, Sophie and Toffee. Jane works for an organisation called CAS, and spends a lot of time rescuing lost and mistreated dogs, finding foster homes for them and ultimately new homes for them.
Looking out on the idyllic mountainsides with their fields of olives, grapes and speckles of white houses, it was sad and shocking to hear that there was a lot of abuse of dogs, and a lot of neglect and thoughtless mistreatment in such a beautiful place. Some dogs are abandoned but others, perhaps through no longer being good at hunting or racing, are subject to hanging and other tortures, sometimes with betting on the time that they will survive. Foster carers take in the rescued or found dogs, look after them while they recover, learn to trust again and develop house skills, and then homes are found in places such as Germany and the Netherlands. The new owners are checked and then the dog flies off with a passport to be met in their new country. It is a very expensive process and Jane and Brian also raise money through markets and stalls on top of caring for dogs and lots of administrative work.
Jane had cooked a beautiful vegetable soup, and it was the first of the superb meals we were to eat here. We talked and talked, with an ease that is usually developed over years but which just seemed natural between us. Little Toffee sat on my knee and had many characteristics more usual in cats. We washed all the items of clothing that have not seen a washing machine for months and I had a shower. We checked our emails and made ourselves at home. We slept well and looked forward to exploring the mountain and the village of Cómpeta the next day.
After a quick breakfast in the hostel dining room, trying to avoid the sneezing of the very unwell German woman we packed our backpacks and left them in the reception office for the morning then headed off to discover Picasso.
The Picasso Museum is here because Picasso was born in Málaga . The first rooms had examples of his early work. At fifteen he was painting realistic studies which were amazing, under the influence of his father who was an academic painter. One of the paintings showed a child with a doll, and it was quite an arresting piece because the child was looking full on at the viewer. Most of the pieces were donated by Picasso´s daughter-in-law and grandson, so are not representative of all his works and include studies and pieces that appeared to be virtually doodles. Perhaps at some point a famous artist may produce anything and it will be considered fantastic. Nevertheless, it was fascinating to see such a wide range of paintings from the traditional through to some that were stylised symbols for ideas and some that looked slap dash. His time in Madrid and Paris introduced him to new and old ideas and other painters. He experimented with cubism, collage and realism in which items are strangely juxtaposed. A 'Portrait of Olga' has a table cloth on her head as a mantilla, not such an odd idea for people like us who are used to improvising costumes, but apparently avant-garde at the time. Another of 'Mother and Child' had Olga again. She is recognisable as a woman with a giant baby, but the shapes created by light and shade, and the reduction of detail until a monolithic sculptured effect is achieved, is a Picasso stage that I had never seen before. Being beautiful or one of Picasso's lovers was no guarantee of looking good in a painting, and we were surprised to read the information panels describing pieces as looking as if a child had painted them. Although Keith was thinking that, and we read that Picasso had said that he spent years learning to paint like a child, I felt that there was something more complex going on in the paintings and drawings we saw. In some paintings, such as 'Bust of a Woman with Arms Crossed Behind Her Head', there seemed to be a disregard for women as individuals or as anything beyond the physical, and a combination of symbols for body parts, albeit in novel positions and compositions, sufficed. Even in my favourite painting, 'Bather', which oozes movement and joie de vivre, it is the colour and fluidity of the lines that create the effect. The body, in typical Picasso style, is perfect for expressing the feeling of being tossed by the waves and in a powerful element when you swim in the sea. Actually I thought that the woman in that was perfect in being represented as what we think of as 'Picasso style' because it made you feel the strength of the waves and the experience of being in an unknown powerful element. As you can see, we had plenty to talk about and we really enjoyed this museum. There were sculptures and ceramics as well and there was no question that Picasso was a very talented artist who challenged traditional styles and then each of his own experimental phases as well.
What we really spent our time on and absolutely loved at the Picasso Museum was the exhibition of work by Max Ernst. Here was an artist with an intellectual approach to his art and the finest of skills and techniques. Not a single line looked slapdash. His 1927 ‘The Horde’ which is lines creating shapes and spaces, is meticulously done and uses colour to enhance the threatening idea of a horde and the sense that women are being carried off and that torture is going on. His natural history drawings were amazing, and so detailed and focused on certain parts, such as the eye of a fish, that the creatures became something else almost surreal.
There was a strange little story of how his pink parrot, a bird he was particularly fond of, died the day that his sister was born and that in his child mind the two events became inexplicably linked. Certainly much of his work plays around with the human form being attached to birds head or feet, and combinations of other creatures and humans also feature in his art. No doubt studying psychology, philosophy and philology at the University of Bonn helped him to overcome early neurosis and cultivate new ones.
Ernst took the Dadaist movement from Zurich to Cologne and his whole life was one of knowing and working with famous artists who were developing new movements in modern art. It also is a catalogue of withdrawing from modern art movements, sometimes because of loyalty to artistic friends who were on the outer. Life was not straightforward for artists in the late 19th and 20th centuries. He painted 17 murals in his poet friend, Paul Eluard’s house – what a gift that was.
Ernst invented some artistic techniques, one of which was collage using parts of 18th century catalogue illustrations along with surprising and inventive additions of his own. He augmented this with frottage, which is when a graphite rubbing is made on a textured material, creating a strange atmosphere which he said was to increase the ability of the mind to hallucinate so that looking at it, visions would occur and you would see into you inner mind. He illustrated many books as well as exhibiting widely and winning many artistic awards. His works were confiscated by the Nazis and in 1939 he was interned in France as an enemy alien. It was through the intersession of Paul Eluard, the owner of all those murals, that he was released.
Another technique which Ernst developed was called oscillation, and involved putting paint in a tin with a hole in it and swinging it around. He then painted lines in association with the drips. This is a technique that Jackson Pollock took us, but as usual, Ernst moved on from it. He started to explore the unconscious and made films on this and other topics such as space. One of his later works is a really beautiful oil painting on a cosmic theme with blues, whites and reds creating colours, textures and shapes that really seem to be evolving in front of your eyes.
We thought that his work was amazing and we could understand what he was thinking with each of his artistic changes and developments. There was excellent information in English about his life and also about each piece.
Time had slipped away, so our visit to the cathedral was brief. The building is so surrounded by others that it was difficult to appreciate it fully. Inside it was very beautiful, with a multitude of chapels around the outsides. Each chapel seemed to be a work of art, and for the first time I realised that that is exactly what they are, created in different eras under the guidance of architects. Famous sculptors of the day were commissioned for the carving and figures and nothing had proceeded under the guidance of a committee. Some chapels had the feeling that they had been designed by the interior decorators who also specialised in formal rooms in palaces. A rather lovely touch was in one chapel where an uncle and a nephew, both archbishops, were shown carved on top of their mausoleums on either side of a chapel. They were reclining but leaning up on their elbows as if they were on a school camp having a chat after 'lights out'.
In the 17th century the choir stalls were completed with an amazing wall of detailed wooden sculptures of the saints by the brilliant Andalusian sculptor, Pedro de Mena. Each saint is depicted with an identifying accessory as well as with the name below. It looked as if each one was ready to step out of the panels and walk away down the church. 
There were some exceptionally beautiful painted wooden sculptures.
The whole place was divided into parts and had the feel of a gallery as much as of a church. We raced through the little museum, realising that we had only seen a small part of the works of art that the church had amassed. It is interesting to consider the effect of exhibited wealth and beauty in a church on the people who attend. For some it would be an obscenity in the face of poverty and death for the populace and for others it would have been the only chance to collectively experience man made art and beauty. Certainly some churches have seemed over the top, while others have not, so perhaps both thoughts are influential in our reactions.We were a little alarmed that the local bus we were to take to the bus station was not listed as arriving soon. Luckily one that was not going anywhere suddenly transformed into the one we wanted, and we were back on time for the one we were to catch to Torrox Costa. Sometimes walking is less stressful and much easier!
We drove along the coast, past villages with a multitude of apartment blocks that are used by holiday makers from Northern Europe as well as Spanish people from cities such as Madrid and Granada. The Sierra Nevada lies like twisting snakes on our left, with the ever present snow caps of the highest peaks shining in the sun like halos. White houses dotted the slopes and, as the land ran towards the sea, hideous plastic covered greenhouses dominated the view but allowed for tropical fruits and for summer crops to be produced all year round.
We were surprised to see that even the humble potato was grown in black plastic covered rows, as strawberries are in Australia. Fertile soil, eroded from the mountains, and caught in ravines and on the plains allows some crops to be planted three times a year.
We were going to stay on a mountain with couch surfers, Jane and Brian. The bus let us off in Torrox Costa, and we waited outside the supermarket, as instructed. They soon emerged with their shopping and we all piled into the car for the twenty minute drive to their home. They are a delightful, lively couple with great senses of humour and we had fun chatting as we drove home with them. They are English, but have lived in Spain in the country on a mountain just out of Cómpeta for the last nine years or so. Their house was reached up a steep drive where their grandson was picking olives for pocket money. Olives are taken to the co-op, and are sold by the kilo for oil. Regular farmers must wait until the oil is sold to be paid, which may be well into the next year, but casual sellers like Jamie are paid on the spot.
We were greeted by three beautiful and well behaved dogs – Pepper, Sophie and Toffee. Jane works for an organisation called CAS, and spends a lot of time rescuing lost and mistreated dogs, finding foster homes for them and ultimately new homes for them.
Looking out on the idyllic mountainsides with their fields of olives, grapes and speckles of white houses, it was sad and shocking to hear that there was a lot of abuse of dogs, and a lot of neglect and thoughtless mistreatment in such a beautiful place. Some dogs are abandoned but others, perhaps through no longer being good at hunting or racing, are subject to hanging and other tortures, sometimes with betting on the time that they will survive. Foster carers take in the rescued or found dogs, look after them while they recover, learn to trust again and develop house skills, and then homes are found in places such as Germany and the Netherlands. The new owners are checked and then the dog flies off with a passport to be met in their new country. It is a very expensive process and Jane and Brian also raise money through markets and stalls on top of caring for dogs and lots of administrative work.
Jane had cooked a beautiful vegetable soup, and it was the first of the superb meals we were to eat here. We talked and talked, with an ease that is usually developed over years but which just seemed natural between us. Little Toffee sat on my knee and had many characteristics more usual in cats. We washed all the items of clothing that have not seen a washing machine for months and I had a shower. We checked our emails and made ourselves at home. We slept well and looked forward to exploring the mountain and the village of Cómpeta the next day.
The south of Spain has undergone a vast building boom over the past decade, fed substantially by speculation, the tourist industry and new ex-pat residents. It all appeared to have ground to a halt at the time we were there. 
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