Mary's heart
Original painting by Juan Bielsa
Oil on board, 61 x 48.6
The tragedy
Painting by Picasso.
Paris, 1903
Picasso’s blue period represents the emergence of the painter as a genius. Until this time, he had been experimenting with different ways of expressing his sensibility, more or less realistic, but always unconfortable with a conventional view of painting and art. He was a nonconformist by nature and was looking for new paths.
Between 1901 and 1904 Picasso paints a series of works where color blue predominates, that’s the most obvious visual sign of a period called “Picasso’s blue period”. Expressionism and symbolism meets here to translate a state of mind and the moods of the artist at that time. He had moved from Barcelona to Paris to pursue his career, although returned many times to the Catalan city during this period. He was not famous yet and did not have sufficient money. He was just an artist struggling to earning his living from his art.
But perhaps the most determinant event that had an effect on his art at this period was the death (comitting suicide) of his friend Carles Casagemas (1881-1901), artist, who had moved to Paris as well. This death was devastating for Picasso and he immersed himself in profound melancholy and reflection.
Picasso painted “The tragedy” in 1903. This painting reflects very well the tragic effects of poverty upon a family; many things are symbolic, and certainly the color blue greatly contributes to increase the sense of misery of the whole scene.
I've always liked Picasso’s blue period. Even as a child I was impressed by these paintings full of a powerful force. I also like very much Picasso’s rose period, when Picasso’s sensibility seems to rejoice and we can see then in the world of the artist harlequins, saltimbanques... But that’s another story...
Juan Bielsa
Udumbara flower
Oil on canvas by Juan Bielsa.
Sold.
I sold this painting some months ago and still I feel its absence. Sure, we paint to sell our works, but some paintings of ours have a special meaning to us, just like this one to me.
In painting this flower I tried to express its uniqueness, its profound power and the many spiritual opportunities that it offers, just like buddhist texts (like the Lotus Sutra) explain. Obviously I followed my own creativity and did not paint the flower with its white petals, just like establish tradition. But in all the essentials I tried to give to it a majestic presence. A spiritual majestic presence, to be precise.
According to tradition, Udumbara flower blooms once every three thousand years. It is a very extraordinary event, like the appearence on this plane of a Buddha, to show to the world the wonderful fruits of the eightfold path, the absolute comprehension of Reality, and overcoming pain in this way; to announce to all humanity a future of love and compassion.
Udumbara flower emerges from chaos to restore the Dharma, justice, the law of love. Many spiritual traditions, throughout the world, have a similar idea. In Ancient Egypt, this supreme principle of order and justice was called Maat, opposed to chaos; the Mound of Creation also emerged from chaos, from the chaotic waters of the Nun, and the God Ra created afterwards all things according to Maat. In a tradition more familiar to us, the Greek have a concept very similar to Dharma or Maat: Logos.
Always humanity strives toward justice, love, order... and that's not easily made, always there are powerful forces trying to thwart any effort in that direction.
Anyway, the old traditions of the world always can give us the magic symbols that we need to never lose hope in our way to a better future, mapping poetically real happiness and wonders. Like the splendid symbol embodied in the flower of Udumbara.
Juan Bielsa
Agyness Deyn
Profound, unconventional elegance
The British model has consolidated her position as a reference point in the world of fashion.
Agyness Deyn does not need to be compared with other models to reinforce her influence, and obviously does not need anymore that cliché of being the “new Kate Moss”. Agyness has a very special personality, with unmistakable characteristics, making of her a potent light in the field of beauty and style; she has also a powerful way of communicating trends.
Agyness has a serene elegance, a supreme one, and very natural. She communicates magic to everything she contacts, always turns in elegance everything she touches. Nothing is conventional in her presence. Her feminity is profound, distinct, full of subtelities. Absolute feminity, and always a sense of freedom. If we truly contemplate Agyness, there is nothing androgynous in her. In this regard I don’t agree, naturally, with some people who claim precisely that.
Agyness Deyn emerges as a model for a woman who dislikes to adhere to some stereotypes that can thwart many wonderful potentialities. She is a sign of our times and for the future of an unconventional beauty. With mystery, a lot of mystery. Giorgio Armani’s firm has made the right choice in selecting her as the face for the company.
Agyness is Agyness, incredibly unique. Surely the present-day trend of emphasize the wonderful possibilities of a lovely short hair in women is largely due to her. With her platinum (or dark) short hair, Agyness is Agyness, an icon of a desinhibited elegance, a profound elegance for our times and beyond.
Juan Bielsa
Meditation room
Oil on canvas by Juan Bielsa.
Painting for sale.
It is a truism. Each one of us has a UNIQUE personality, we are precious specimens. Each one of us is an original, and so we have different worlds to create, we em body different potentialities ready to be expressed on the canvas of life.
One of my best friends, for example, has a real passion for travels. When he is not working, he is continually asking himself: Well, where can I go now? He has traveled to France, to the Alps, to Germany, to Norway, to Lithuania, to Russia... He has plans to travel to the lake Baikal, in Siberia.
Instead... my pleasure is in contemplation. I travel a lot, too, but in spirit... My passion is contemplation. My passion is silence, a precious book, a lovely landscape, a good friend, an empty canvas. I lose myself in the pages of a book, I travel upon silent maps, upon the beautiful eyes of a cat, I meditate watching the poetry of sunsets, feeling the wind on my face.
It must be wonderful to travel to Norway (“the Mecca of beauty”, my friend said). It would be splendid to watch the fiords from a mountain... But, instead, I take a book by Knut Hamsun, for example, and I can really feel the fresh soul of Norway, and I can travel in this way, poetically, even to Laponia, to Iceland, to Greenland, to a paradise of fantasy and mystery.
The same is with my paintings. I paint them in meditation. When they are finished, I place them in my studio, or in my bedroom, and then I travel through them to universes that I like: Silence, Soul, Innocence.
I have a dream for my life, a gread dream: to build my house of eternity, a great room for meditation, a gigantic room for contemplation, where one can meditate upon the beauty of Love, where one can read the great book of Love.
Juan Bielsa
Cat painted by Franz Marc
Franz Marc was a member
of the impressionist German group "Blauer Reiter" (Blue Rider).
Franz Marc (1880-1916), during all this life, was a seeker of purity and truth. He did not find them in the human being. So he tried to find these qualities in animals. You can admire his magnificent paintings in which the main subjects are blue horses, dogs, cats... You already know that Hitler comdemned the blue horses of Franz Marc, considering them as degenerate art...
Marc died relatively young. At the end of his career, his thoughts about art suffered important changes, always showing a constant evolution toward abstraction. At this point the forms of animals disappear almost entirely. He searched PURITY (only in a spiritual sense, obviously). But unfortunately he did not have sufficient time to give shape to his final artistic ideas.
Each one of us has his preferences about paintings, painters. In my case... I must say: I love Franz Marc.
Juan Bielsa
