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LINKS TO PAST SPAIN LIFESTYLE * ART LOVERS TRIPS

PHOTOS FROM NOVEMBER 2013 TRIP TO MADRID AND TOLEDO
VIDEO FROM NOVEMBER 2013 TRIP TO MADRID
PHOTOS FROM MARCH 2014 TRIP TO VALENCIA
PHOTOS FROM APRIL 2014 TRIP TO ALICANTE
PHOTOS FROM NOVEMBER 2014 TRIP TO MADRID AND TOLEDO
PHOTOS FROM MARCH 2015 TRIP TO ALICANTE
PHOTOS FROM MAY 2015 TRIP TO XATIVA
PHOTOS & REVIEWS OF TRIP TO MADRID 2016
PHOTOS FROM TOLEDO TRIP 2018
PHOTOS FROM VALENCIA TRIP * MAY 2018
PHOTOS FROM MEDIEVAL MADNESS TRIP * NOV. 2018 * Segorbe, Moro de Rubelios, Teruel & Albarracin
PHOTOS FROM GANDIA EXPERIENCE TRIP * MARCH 2019

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JÁVEA-WALK FRIDAY * 26TH @ 10:30

Explore and Learn About the History of JÁVEA by visiting its most exciting and unique monuments and museum with Spanish Fine Arts & Architecture Historian / Educator, Karla Darocas, Hons. B. A. (KarlaDarocas.com)

MEETING PLACE: Central Indoor Market * The Cafe shop La Paraeta at the Calle San Marco door. Beside Carniceria Mutt https://goo.gl/maps/CL6yXQMw2zM2
- Come early for your coffee.

BOOKING form below...

TIMES: 10:30 - 13:00 finish times depends on bathroom breaks :)

FEE 10 euros: includes LECTURE & WALKING ROUTE / MAP, in case you get lost or separated from group

MAX. 5 students per group MAX

END OF WALK: Get a beverage and Q & A time...
NOTE: If you enjoy ancient artifacts then you can head back to the museum after the lecture.

PARKING in the Municipal Parking Lots...

REVIEWS: www.KarlaDarocas.com

ABOUT THE WALK

Javea's architecture reflects three special historical periods when wealth and prosperity produced very unique sacred and civil architecture.

We will go t…

THE TALE OF SOROLLA'S HOLIDAY HORROR IN JAVEA

It was the summer of 1905 when the talented Valencian impressionist painter Joaquín Sorolla brought his family to the Port of Jávea (Playa de la Grava) for a much needed holiday.

Inspired by the cliffs of both the Cape of San Antonio and Nou, and the turquoise sparkle of the east facing sea, Sorolla explored some of his greatest impressionist experiments of capturing light and underwater movement.

Report by Karla Darocas, Hon.B.A. (copyright 2019)

Clotilde and Elena in the rocks of Jávea (1905. Private collection)
A dedicated artist, Sorolla spent his holiday at work. However, to allow his family the freedom to swim, sun and enjoy their time on holiday too, Sorolla hired a nanny / maid to watch their youngest child Elena, cook, tidy and do their laundry at their 11 cents per day rental accommodation.

Unknown to the Sorolla family, this maid had a very jealous military boyfriend from Murcia who was going to turn their happy holiday into a hellish horror!

Versions of this story have circ…

FRANCISCO GOYA History, Views & Visions of an Enlightened, Romantic Master Artist

"INSPIRATIONAL & INSIGHTFUL TRIBUTE TO A GENIUS"
LECTURE with SLIDES ** For History Lovers * Experience & Discover The Spanish Enlightenment through Goya.
** For Artists * Explained are Goya's Stylistic Developments, Influences & Techniques.

TRIBUTE

"Goya was a man of his time, however he didn't follow the guidelines of many other artists of the moment and that is what makes him really interesting. His work is varied, beautiful, complex and intense.

Since he died at age 82, Goya lived and worked through many very important changes in Spain's politics and society. Goya was able to blend his thoughts and ideas, doubts and personal experience together with significant historical events. His artworks bare witness to his genius.

To add to his greatness, the man suffered illness, deafness, the horrors of war, the hunger of revolution, the adventures of love and the defeat of disappointment in his fellow Spaniards."

- Karla Darocas

ABOUT

Francisco J…

One Hundred Miles South of Valencia

This is a portion of his Travel Account written by Aureliano de Beruete (eminent historian and critic of art) when he visited the Valencian impressionist / historical painter Joaquín Sorolla, who was on holiday in Javea 1905.

Copyright, 1909, by THE HISPANIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA

Aureliano de Beruete painted by Sorolla

One hundred miles south of Valencia, a little used narrow-gage railway brings us through an opulent country to a shack of a railway-station known as Vergel. The only train that brings you there in the day arrives exactly at noon. From the station there is nothing to see save a miserable country restaurant across the way and a blazing white road that stretches away in radiant sunlight across the treeless plain.

That twelve-mile ride in the tumble-down Vergel diligence is not a tempting prospect, but it is the opening of the door of Javea, a hidden Paradise where Sorolla has done a great part of his outdoor work.

Those twelve miles are very, very long. The dust powders you as…

GLORIOUS GANDIA

NEXT LECTURE *
Thursday, March 28th, 17.00 H This History of Gandia is a SpainLifestyle.com presentation that explains the early beginnings of Gandia through to its modern transformations by exploring its royalty, nobles, arts, crafts, trades and architectural building and monuments.
The capital of the Safor region, sitting on a rich agricultural plain next to the river Serpis, Gandia enjoys a mild climate, excellent beaches and a delicious local favourite dish of fideuá. But apart from its tourist side, this Valencian town retains a history marked by illustrious characters and magnificent civil and religious buildings.

BOOKING FORM

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THE UNSOLVED MYSTERY OF GOYA'S MISSING SKULL

THE ENIGMA

Dionisio Fierros (1827-1894 ) was a Spanish Romantic painter who in 1849 painted a "vanitas", an allegorical still life, for the Marquis of San Adrián of Navarra.

It wasn't a very robust work of art, especially in an era of great Romanticism and drama.

It was a traditional "vanitas" of a skull, which was the most common symbol representing the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death. It was a human skull displayed in a three quarter view. It had no jaw. It rested on a green carpet. It showed many dental failures. The color used was a toasted yellow.

It would have been a fairly boring 44 x 37 cm oil on canvas painting had it not been for the three words written on the back of the wooden frame, in sepia ink; ' Skull of Goya '.

Report by Karla Darocas. Hons. B.A. (Copyright 2019)

GOYA IN EXILE

Don Francisco de Goya decided to leave Spain in 1824, in part due to his dislike for Ferdinand VII's Bourbon doctrine…

MONASTERY OFFERS A VAST ARRAY OF ARCHITECTURAL WONDERS

The Royal Monastery of Sant Jeroni de Cotalba sits proudly on a small hill just outside of Gandia, in the district of Alfauir (Valencia). It is surrounded by nature, orange groves, walking trails and picnic spots. It is now a private estate that opens the main floor and the grounds to the public on weekends, but for over the past 600 years, it has been a very special place for Kings, Queens, Nobelmen and women and the Hieronymite Order.

The Hieronymite Order has its origin in Jàvea. In 1374 Pope Gregory XI authorized the foundation of a monastery in Jàvea to the Hieronymite order. The duke Alfonso of Aragon granted the grounds for this monastery but it was attacked by Berber pirates in 1387 and the monks feared to return there. For that reason in 1388 Alfonso of Aragon bought the territories of Cotalba from Muslims, which was safer and he donated it all to the Hieronymite monks of Jàvea.

The Monastery itself is a complex or compound with a vast array of architectural wonders, which rep…

WHO WAS ANDRÉ LAMBERT WITHIN THE HISTORY OF JÁVEA ARTS?

For many of you that have gone around Jávea on my Jávea Walk, we pop into a palace named Casa Lambert, which was preserved as an arts school and community artist exhibition space by the family of the French-Swiss painter, André Lambert.

So, who was Lambert and why was he so involved with the cultural life of Jávea?

Report by Karla Darocas (KarlaDarocas.com)

André Lambert Jordán (1884-1967) was a watercolorist, painter, engraver and Swiss-French architect who lived a large part of his life in Javea. For Lambert, Jávea was a gold mine of interest and he made many art works about the place from historical buildings to the unique landscape.

André Lambert was born in Switzerland on March 17, 1884, where he studied architecture at the School of Advanced Technical Studies in Munich. Later he went on to study Fine Arts in the Bavarian capital and it was these studies that ended him in Paris around 1908.

André established his first studio in Montparnasse, later moving to the Ile St. Louis.

In …

XÁBIA , JOSÉ ANTONIO BOLUFER AND HIS SHIP MYSTERY

This is a story about a small village, a large wharf, a visionary business man and his fleet and a tiny treat of dried fruit.

The Xábia wharf was finished in 1879 and all of the small fishing boats and transport barges that would normally be stranded on the beach could now properly anchor. The large size of the wharf allowed for the berthing of a variety of boats, many of them owned by the main merchants of Xábia.

Pailebot PEPE TONO. From the book Xabia Marinera. Graphic Memory
REPORT BY: Karla Darocas, Hons. B.A. Fine Arts (www.KarlaDarocas.com)

On any given day, the ships that moored in Xábia were Feluccas, a traditional Mediterranean wooden sailing boat; Jabeques, a triangular sailboat, with which one could also sail by rowing; Schooners, a type of sailing vessel with fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts; and Pailebotes, a type of sailing vessel that has had various uses: merchant , fishing or recreational yacht.

The ability to load and unload directly from land with greater spe…

WATCH * 3D ANIMATION OF GALATEA OF THE SPHERES * A DALI PORTRAIT

Dali's passion for the sciences, as a way to express mysticism, comes into full vision in this mesmerizing painting - Galatea of the Spheres from 1952. It represents a synthesis of Renaissance art and atomic theory and illustrates the suspension of matter, the spheres themselves representing atomic particles.

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ALL IMAGES AND TEXT ON THIS SITE ARE THE PROPERTY OF MRS. KARLA DAROCAS * 2014