Latest news with #AssumptionoftheVirgin
The Age
5 days ago
- The Age
Spain's former capital is worth more than a day trip
Walk five minutes south of the monastery, past one former synagogue – Santa Maria La Blanca, reputed to be Europe's oldest – and you arrive at another. The magnificent carved wooden ceilings and plasterwork walls of El Transito blend Mozarabic decorative influences. Constructed in 1355, El Transito houses the Sephardic Museum, which accounts for Toledo's long Jewish history. You'll find good information sheets in English and the museum has some especially beautiful ceramics. Pause afterwards in the synagogue's small memorial garden. See Take in the art at Hospital de Tavera Don't like monuments and art? Better skip Toledo, which has them in spades. This Renaissance palace, built by a cardinal for the needy, is a whopper. The architectural highlight is the symmetrical double courtyards, while a wealth of paintings includes masterpieces by El Greco, Tintoretto and Zurbaran. Cardinal Tavera's marble tomb is a sculptural work of art too, with no sign of humility other than a little memento mori skull tucked under his pillow. See Admire El Greco paintings Toledo is associated with El Greco, the 16th-century painter whose works seem astonishingly modern. You can see quite a few of his paintings in Toledo, and all are odd and electrifying. The church of Santo Domingo Monastery where the painter is buried has top examples including the altarpiece Assumption of the Virgin showing Mary springing from her tomb like a jack-in-the-box. El Greco Museum (in a house where El Greco never lived, despite claims) has several superb later works. See Fill up at Confiteria Santo Tome If El Greco's elongated, hollow-cheeked saints make you peckish, take a break from gloomy painted art and indulge in happy edible art instead. Toledo nuns are said to have invented marzipan – which is disputed – but Toledo has certainly produced it for centuries. Santo Tome, in business since 1856, is Spain's best-known marzipan maker. You can devour biscuits, pastries, cakes, sweets and marzipan fruit filled with lip-licking goo. Like El Greco's saints, you'll soon be in heaven. See Take a hike to Mirador del Valle Loading In this old town of closed-in alleys, you'll want to get beyond the walls to admire Toledo's fabulous setting above the Tagus River, dominated by the whopping Alcazar, or fortress. This viewpoint is a 40-minute walk from Puente Nuevo bridge just below the fortress, but outlooks are fabulous all the way. Sunset and twilight are the most atmospheric. The lazy option is a taxi to nearby Parador de Toledo for a cocktail on the terrace. See
Sydney Morning Herald
5 days ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Spain's former capital is worth more than a day trip
Walk five minutes south of the monastery, past one former synagogue – Santa Maria La Blanca, reputed to be Europe's oldest – and you arrive at another. The magnificent carved wooden ceilings and plasterwork walls of El Transito blend Mozarabic decorative influences. Constructed in 1355, El Transito houses the Sephardic Museum, which accounts for Toledo's long Jewish history. You'll find good information sheets in English and the museum has some especially beautiful ceramics. Pause afterwards in the synagogue's small memorial garden. See Take in the art at Hospital de Tavera Don't like monuments and art? Better skip Toledo, which has them in spades. This Renaissance palace, built by a cardinal for the needy, is a whopper. The architectural highlight is the symmetrical double courtyards, while a wealth of paintings includes masterpieces by El Greco, Tintoretto and Zurbaran. Cardinal Tavera's marble tomb is a sculptural work of art too, with no sign of humility other than a little memento mori skull tucked under his pillow. See Admire El Greco paintings Toledo is associated with El Greco, the 16th-century painter whose works seem astonishingly modern. You can see quite a few of his paintings in Toledo, and all are odd and electrifying. The church of Santo Domingo Monastery where the painter is buried has top examples including the altarpiece Assumption of the Virgin showing Mary springing from her tomb like a jack-in-the-box. El Greco Museum (in a house where El Greco never lived, despite claims) has several superb later works. See Fill up at Confiteria Santo Tome If El Greco's elongated, hollow-cheeked saints make you peckish, take a break from gloomy painted art and indulge in happy edible art instead. Toledo nuns are said to have invented marzipan – which is disputed – but Toledo has certainly produced it for centuries. Santo Tome, in business since 1856, is Spain's best-known marzipan maker. You can devour biscuits, pastries, cakes, sweets and marzipan fruit filled with lip-licking goo. Like El Greco's saints, you'll soon be in heaven. See Take a hike to Mirador del Valle Loading In this old town of closed-in alleys, you'll want to get beyond the walls to admire Toledo's fabulous setting above the Tagus River, dominated by the whopping Alcazar, or fortress. This viewpoint is a 40-minute walk from Puente Nuevo bridge just below the fortress, but outlooks are fabulous all the way. Sunset and twilight are the most atmospheric. The lazy option is a taxi to nearby Parador de Toledo for a cocktail on the terrace. See
Evening Standard
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Evening Standard
Jenny Saville at the National Portrait Gallery: 'mythic art of the flesh'
In a room of mother works, in charcoal and pastel as well as paint, Saville becomes interested in women's bodies transforming dramatically in motherhood, where the bellies and boobs and thighs are crawled over – again the fleshscapes – by babies with their thick chubby thighs and fingers. Any parent, but most especially mums, will testify that those early months is mostly having your body existing as a massive playpark for your baby, who wants to pinch, cuddle, suck, grab and if you're unlucky, bite, any bit that comes close. Mother's bodies are their early worlds. In The Mothers, the cherubs of Titian's Assumption of the Virgin – which Saville saw as a young artist in Venice - are brought down to earth. And they're not being easy to deal with either. I loved the way she captured the movement of little kiddies, these children are not serene, sweet little thing, they are arching their back to escape a grip, wriggling around annoyingly, screaming blue. This is the reality of human life, bodies piling up, interlocking, shoving, trying to go back in. These mums are totems of fertility, not anti-feminist, just bare-naked reality about the wonderful crap you have to deal with.
