Lima, three paintings; my fourth Peruvian trip

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Lima, Rimac, Santo Liberato, oil on card, 19.5 x 25.5 cm  available

 Lima, the park near the Art Museum, oil on card, 21 x 24 cm  SOLD

 Lima, Rimac, street, oil on card, 19 x 25 cm - unavailable

Lima is full of great architecture. It`s filthy and everywhere stinks. The light is often hazy, poor for painting. But it`s fascinating to wander around. 

This painting trip was a great success with many fine paintings. I`m always dubious about saying such things in case I jinx myself.  

I wasn't intending to come here. I was planning on going to Ecuador. But because they need Yellow Fever Certification to enter Ecuador from a tropical country, and I didn't have this, I couldn`t board the flight to Quito. 

Luckily I had a b-plan, the the b-plan was southern Peru- Arequipa and the mountains there. 

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My Peruvian Adventure- Lima; conclusions; next?

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Lima

Lima, tabernacle, oil on card, 21.2 x 17.5 cm  SOLD

Lima, a block near the courts, oil on card, 17.2 x 19 cm  available

This building near the courts reminded me of the Flatiron in New York. 

Lima, a view of a street in the centre, oil on card, 17.7 x 18.5 cm -  -unavailable

This picture has not photographed well. There are some colour combinations that the camera is very poor with. But it is a good picture with a nice Dufy-ish feel, albeit more tightly composed.

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I spent almost a week in Lima and painted only three pictures. But they are all good: the colours are original and they are unfussy and confident. I stayed in the centre and in Miraflores too. I went to Miraflores because I am a softie and a rotten traveller and the filth of old Lima started to depress me. But Miraflores is also a bit depressing in its blandness and provides nothing much worth painting. I know because when I`d set myself up to work on something I found after some minutes that I could scarcely focus on the motif so glazed with boredom had I become. It was as if nothing in Miraflores told or suggested any story, it was so blandly, nicely, suburban.

Lima proper is very rich architecturally (if in need of considerable restoration), with a more splendid variety of buildings by miles than I have seen in any other Latin American city including Rio, Santiago and Salvador.

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Travelling and painting in Peru 

You come home and within two days its as if you had never been anywhere at all.

Peru is mostly good to paint in. The people are not generally criminals and they don`t harry you sleazily as is the custom in North Africa. They are mainly polite, good-natured and a little shy. That includes the children who are neither nasty and sly like British children, vicious like the stone-throwing prodigy of Arabia, nor like the fat Ritalin-addled slobs you get in Donald Trump`s USA (Brazilian children are also mostly amicable- at least, the children of the lower orders are. The children of the Brazilian bourgeoisie are as revolting as their adult peers, spoilt and self-regarding and forever glued to their moronic smart-phones).

There are dogs everywhere, however, and these are sometimes aggressive. I had to rescue a schoolgirl in Ayacucho from a pack of about six of them. She was traumatized and went back home crying. Occasionally the dogs are covered in sores. I frequently saw pigs too, some of them enormous and shamelessly slothful.

Hygiene is not, generally, a high priority among Peruvians. Restaurants rarely have soap and towels, and the streets reek of urine. There is litter all over the place.

I sometimes found the food to be so poor as to be repulsive, created as it generally is by stewing the innards of uncertain animals for long periods of time. Salad is a rarity. The breads are weird- round and cardboard-y. There are some salty cheeses. Cakes are more impressive in their appearance than taste, which also has the aspect of cardboard. Ceviche is not worth making a fuss about- it`s acidic and gives one a belly-ache. For dinner fried chicken with chips is compulsory but it`s rarely any good and you feel sad after dining. The coffee, which is mainly instant or some concoction made in advance in a tureen, isn't much to look forward to. Milk is uncommon.

 The light is soft and sad and not bad at all but equally it is not remarkable as it can be in Italy on a golden evening or when here in winter it is clear and crisp and the sun is low casting such blue shadows. It didn't rain much at all and I managed to work most days. The landscapes I found did not often convey a grandeur though except near Tarma. I was stymied by the road blockage out of Ayacucho as that route might have given me more dramatic perspectives. I also missed the beauty of tall trees. 

In architecture Peru is quite harmonious. Their modern buildings do not, as in Brazil,  disturb so hideously the older constructions (really Brazilians should be very ashamed of their architecture and how cruelly they have treated their heritage). And the older constructions in Peru are often of considerable interest and merit. 

I met few other travelers and those few I met (4 x French) were unfriendly to the point of rudeness. What a pointless nation the French have become! Anyway, being alone is quite agreeable- my own company is very good.

Conclusions

Some of the paintings are good, some repeat themes. The average size of pictures is greater than in previous trips and I won`t work larger, at least not for a while. Anyway, there are maybe as many as ten paintings I am unequivocally happy with, which isn't a bad number (but what is the right number?). The business is capricious and I am not sure one ever really gets better at it.

Where next?

Chicago and New York. I like to go to a western country after having spent time in an undeveloped country.  Maybe about 9 days in each of these cities? Also, I like Uruguay and want to go back there in winter as the light is so good.

I have only just returned and I am desperate to get another  solid period in which I can do some work.  I hate the bittiness of previous journeys- in fact I am angry with myself for permitting such short essays. And with distant trips one loses days here and there just travelling and finding ones bearings. 

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My Peruvian Adventure: The Lima Art Museum (MALI): some highlights

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A selection - rather a miscellany - of things I found diverting at Lima's beautiful Fine Arts museum.

As in Brazil, the tradition of painting is either religious, or sustained by arrivals of immigrants after which it appears to suddenly die. Judging from these paintings, there seems to have been a vigorous bohemian culture in Lima up to the 50s, when it must have been a most charming city (an impression reinforced by reading Llosa`s Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. My impression of the city since then is that the middle classes moved en masse to live in Miraflores, leaving the old town to crumble.

Ricardo Grau, Portrait of Ana Pizarro, oil on canvas, 1938

Julia Codesido, India Huanca, oil on canvas, 1932 

Jorge Reinoso, Tantahuasi, oil on canvas, 1929

Jose Dieguez, Camilio Blas, oil on canvas, 1927 

Víctor Morey Peña, Yo no soy, ink on paper, 1924

Franciso Laso, Road between hills, oil on canvas, 1850-60

Cuzco school, oil on canvas, 1700-1750

Cusco school,

 Allegory with Indian patron, oil on canvas, 1770 - 1800

There is a delightful room with some wonderful photos including the following-

Juan Manuel Figueroa Aznar 

  Historia de amor y desengaño

ca. 1907

Tienda en Morocochaca, 1928 - 1940 Sebastián Rodríguez

Estudio Vargas Hermanos, Ferretería, 1927

Costumbrismo

This amusing observational style flourished in the early 19th Century in hispanic countries. There is an excellent collection here. there are elements of caricature, they document clothing styles and some appear to tell stories. 

Attributed to Francsco Cortes, Seated woman smoking,

 watercolour and tempera on paper, 1827- 38

Attributed to Francsco Cortes, Plumed Dancer

 watercolour and tempera on paper, 1827-39

Francisco ¬Pancho¬ Lima, Mercedarian friar dancing the zamacueca,  

watercolour on paper, 10 May 1836

Francisco ¬Pancho¬ Lima, Street fight, watercolour on paper, 1834-41

Francisco ¬Pancho¬ Lima, Announcement for a cock fight

 watercolour on paper, 1834-41

A bee

There is also an array of pins including this charming  bee-

Anonymous,Tupu, Silver cast, hammered, laminated

chiseled and incised, 1830 -1900

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My Peruvian Adventure: The Amano Pre-Columbian Textile Museum

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Here are some photos from the excellent Amano Museum in Miraflores, Lima. 

Their website is http://eng.museoamano.org/amano/

My apologies for not identifying all the samples.

 Textile catalogue in camelid and cotton fibre, 1100-1450 AD, Chancay textilemaker

 Wari mantle with Andean cross, 700-1200 AD, Wari Artisans

Mocha Textile bag 

Karwa mantle of staffed god, 1000 BC to 200 BC byt Chavin artisans

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This year's January trip: central Peru

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Central Peru, from Stanford's New Edition Map, 1912

I can't afford the flights to Ecuador, so it's back to Peru- no bad thing as it's a splendid country.

This time I fly to Lima, then to Ayacucho , then go by bus back to Lima via Huancayo, Tarma and probably somewhere else, perhaps Huancavelica. 

Last time I  was too rigid with my itinerary, which forced be to spend Carnival in Cajamarca when I would have been better off eleswhere. But there is a complication whenever flights are involved because you are always better off booking these in advance.

 I'm a rotten traveler. Good travelers can go with the flow: they see changes in itinerary and small privations as pleasing challenges, they delight in conversational misunderstandings and find strange food exotic.

 Needless to say, I find all these things immensely irritating. 

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A visit to northern Peru- next year's itinerary and- part one - Lima

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Well that`s clear: Peru in Summer is pleasant and a good place to go painting, except when it rains which it hardly did when I was there. So next time I will go there  for six weeks, cutting out Trujillo, and doing to the following-

Fly to Lima
Fly to Chiclayo 
Visit Lambayeque
Take the bus from Chiclayo to Chachapoyas
Stay in Chachapoyas Backpackers 
Visit Gopta waterfall.
Return: route uncertain.

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Lima is a a big smelly place  and it is a place where I spent a week. I stayed in Miraflores, which is good for shopping and eating but rather easy-wipe clean and lacking a certain specificity. I mean, you could be just about anywhere that is reasonable pleasant.

So almost all my work was done in the centre which is a lot more interesting both architecturally and in terms of general atmosphere, with people selling all manner of stuff all over the place. I especially enjoyed the less touristy bits near the bullring and around Chinatown. They are quite filthy and full of odd things to see. 

Lima: Monserrat, oil on card, 13 x 16.5 cm  - available

Lima, Barrio Altos, oil on card, 13 x 16 cm unavailable

Lima: la Victoria, oil on card, 12.8 x 13.2 cm - unavailable

Lima: Callao, oil on card, 13.5 x 15.5 cm  - available

Lima: Rimac, oil on card, 14 x 17.5 cm   - available

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Peru: part two

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Peru: part two

I found Peru extremely agreeable, and I've resolved to escape the summer there, from late January to the end of February.

I'm going to stop in Lima this time, then I'll continue to Trujullo, and then up to  Cajamarca via Huamachuco, which I'll use as bases to explore the surrounding Andean region, thus:

I'm happy with the new double carriers, which allow me to carry considerably more materials. I am therefore able to travel for longer, a month or more. 

Join me if you wish,

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