Aside from the portrait of Mlle Ferrand, my visit last week to Munich’s Alte Pinakothek gallery was underwhelming. Much of it left me cold – the kind of coldness where I can’t tell how much is about the artworks themselves, how much they are just reflecting my own apathy.
Perhaps it’s because, visiting en route to a Nick Cave concert, I was primed for the melodramatic intensity of a Caravaggio or a Delacroix. Even the lashings of Christian gore — which you might expect to align with Cave — somehow felt too neat and orderly. I almost sighed with relief when I reached the one El Greco. Compared to its environment it feels brighter, bolder, larger than life:
It took until the 19th century for me to get a similar vibe, this time from Daumier’s Don Quixote:
And this pre-Raphaelite Hikikomori, entitled “I lock my door upon myself”:
Finally, some aspirational bibliophile clutter:
