Every once in a while I’ll see a real estate photo that screams out as a perfect room for a (virtual) art installation. I saw this room with the funky 1970s wallpaper and orangish-brown paint and decided I would Photoshop one of my paintings into the interior.
The painting is titled “Spanish Excursionism,” and is a 20 x 16 inch acrylic on canvas. The artwork takes from visual inspiration I experienced while visiting Spain last fall, including statues in Madrid, and elements from the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, among other things. The artwork – as of the time of this posting – is available for sale – send me an email for details. Scroll down for more on the title of this painting …
Why is it titled “Spanish Excursionism,” you might ask? A dictionary definition of “excursionism” is “a pleasure trip,” and my eight days in Spain, going to Madrid, Toledo, and Barcelona, was a fantastic experience. But it also relates to something I read in a book titled “Barcelona,” by noted art critic Robert Hughes, who explained excursionism as a Spanish concept that “was not simply tourism. Tourism, in any organized sense, did not exist in Spain then (in the 1800s). Excursionism meant purposeful, educated travel with the aim of discovering one’s own country and learning to value it … it was Ruskinian adventure – active, inquisitive, melding scientific curiosity about plants, weather, rocks, and ecology with aesthetic appreciation of old buildings, folk art, frescoes, and crafts. One did not set out to reach a few climactic sights, one noted everything along the way.”
I love this idea of travel, and so I wanted to capture a number of different elements of Spain – from monuments to Gaudi to stained glass to architectural elements and wooden doors, collected and semi-abstracted in my painting.