I like when my taxpayer money is well invested.

Another proof that I have not a big memory for names. You are certainly right, I have not a picture of the text describing this painting. What is nice with Albotto is that quite all his paintings are showing a canal. What would be Venice without canals ?

@topffer Most of the paintings of Venice show canals. Milan had canals in the past, when my father was a kid, then they ruined the city. There was a beautiful project drawn by Leonardo da Vinci for the city of Milan, keeping the canals and creating a two levels of streets, for pedestrians and for carriages. Geniuses are never listened.... ask the Donald.

@LadyDuck "No one is prophet in his own country"... but it might work elsewhere : there is a bridge like that with two levels designed by Leonardo for a castle near the Loire. Search for "Clos Lucé".

The stupid thing done with the Louvre is to have put 20 years ago the main entrance on the underground, quite at the lower place possible. By itself the galleries cannot be flooded, but the basements can. When I visited them long ago, they were used as a storage area and were full of statues. I went 3 times to Venice during a few days each. I have several relationships who bought houses there, and I have been tempted to do the same to retire. Some neighborhoods are very affordable, it is less expensive than in a big city here.

@JudyEv No, humidity does not damage stone foundations as long as it does not freeze. Many castles, including the old Louvre castle, had moat and their foundations were in the water all the year. You want to leave Australia or the place where you are now ?

@topffer Venice, I think, would be a lovely place to retire to. We are trying to work out what to do when we leave here although we're hoping it won't be for a few years yet. But eventually we will need to move. Getting back to the Louvre - surely having the basements flood would weaken the rest of the building?

@topffer whoa! Artist residentry? How? Why? Where?!

@owstalaga I guess that if you are a comics author, even a not published one if you have just ended your art studies, it is possible to ask to reside here to work on a comics project. For more details I give you a link.

It is the biggest international comics festival in France. There is also a national museum of comics, the legal deposit of all comics printed in France, a national school for anime and comics, and half of the anime studios in this country. Many foreign comics designer can come here for a few months for an artist residency, and speaking French is not mandatory if you are a comics author. There are authors in residency from all the world.

@topffer I know its romantic but for me so is Milan and Florence. To each his own. Benidorm was very romantic for me for very special reasons too.

@lovinangelsinstead21 Benidorm has very nice beaches perfect for a midnight bath, and contrarily to Nice they have real sand.

I also like Florence a lot, but when it comes to loving a city, my only love is Venice. It is a so romantic place!

@topffer That's really strange . . . unless they were dark comics and meant to be that way? I love those scenic landscapes where they really push the perspective. I am not good with architecture or perspective and those kinds of details (I am too impatient) - so I am in awe when I see such paintings and drawings! Richard Corben! Hubby is familiar with his works. I guess we know him for Den in Heavy Metal. I believe we actually have some of the original drawings (or possibly animation cells) from that Den sequence!

@much2say One of these dark exhibitions was dedicated to a Japanese, Naoki Urosawa, and the reason of the darkness was that some of his large drawings had another drawing inside that could be seen only with a special light (they were giving torchs, children were liking this), for example a boy with a kind of green printed circuit board inside that could be seen only with these torchs. The other one... the museography was dark : black walls, poles dressed like pieces of ruined walls, etc. It was for an author that I dislike drawing a lot of suburbs buildings, but his albums are not that dark. These Venitian paintings are full of perspective making them looking alive. If I was less lazzy I would post another photo that I have in mind to show it to you. Nice to have original drawings of Corben He was also in the French version of Heavy Metal, "Yelling Metal".

There was a problem this year with the museography of several comics exhibitions. They were just too dark. There was light on the drawings but you could hardly read the explanation card in the darkness. This exhibition about Venice was full of lights, and, for sure, the best comics drawings cannot compare with a Canaletto or a Guardi, even a small gouache of Guardi. The great price of the comics festival went to an American this year, Richard Corben, so we will have a Corben exhibition and the poster of the festival done by him next year.

And in winter you have floods. But it is a so beautiful city! And with exhibitions and cultural events all the year. The collections of the Queen are incredible. At the exhibition around king François Ier in Le Louvre (it closed on Jan 15th), there were several 16th C paintings from the Royal Collectioncoming from Windsor. She is a bit stingy : these paintings were the only ones with some engravings coming from a museum in Berlin (I do not remember what museum, there are so many museums in Berlin !) where photos were forbidden.

@topffer Bravo! Do you speak Italian?

@1hopefulman No, but I understand it although I can misunderstand a word or an expression here and there. Italians were kind enough to speak slowly when I asked them.

I went three times to Venice and I love it, it is exactly my kind of exhibition

Thank you. I really liked to visit this exhibition and wanted to share.

Tell me this joke! We realized in 1940 with the Maginot line that border walls were not working very well, so we do not invest anymore in them. Seriously, yes, it is a rare occurrence, the budget for culture in France is just above 1% of the global budget. They can do better.

@topffer The joke, yes: Q: How do you make a Venetian blind? A: Poke him in the eye... (I did not say it was a good joke!)

@pgntwo We had a tv entertainer fired 2 or 3 months ago for another joke about eyes : What do you tell to a woman with black eyes ? Nothing, you already explained her twice.

The Louvre has thousands of paintings but they do not loan them easily to other museums. This exhibition is wonderful.

@topffer I'm glad they did so for the exhibition it's in.

One does not preclude the other and I understand the priority when it comes to toilets or water. Well, in Europe every house has drinkable tap water and bathrooms. Public toilets are at the expense of the cities in my country. Some are well equipped, some not, it is their choice, but it is usually relevant : there are a lot of public toilets in touristic places, and not a lot in not touristic cities. I had a look on Wikipedia and I see that you have several museums in Trinidad and Tobago, among them a National Museum and Art Gallery. I am quite sure that they have events all around the year, you should visit it and see an exhibition, you would be perhaps or perhaps not interested, as long as you did not tried you cannot tell.

@topffer Thank you, I too recently looked up and saw museums in Trinidad and Tobago. I know only of one in Port of Spain that is the destination of school outings. As a teacher I once took a class but all the children crossed the road to line up at the telephone booth to call home to say they were in the city! They did the same when we visited the zoo. Just to be sure that I am not bias, i just ask my niece it she has ever visited the Museum. Yes, she says, as a school child under 10 years. Did she remember anything? No, Did the museum made an impression? Hell, no. What was the most exciting thing? Where they were going after. I ask her if she had a choice now, as an adult, would she visit the Museum? No, not really. So my point really is that we are hardly aware we have a museum and if it were not a school outing, no one actually visit it. I think Trinidadians are just not very conscious. So for us tax payer's money is better invested elsewhere. In our homes we drink bottle water even though the tap has water and government will tell you it is drinkable. But it burns (too much chlorine I think) so we don't drink it any more. But it is not drinkable water that is the problem...but the DISTRIBUTION of water to rural areas.

You have nothing to learn from me, you have just different interests.

@topffer I will have to think more about that statement of yours ...

The paintings of this exhibition are of great quality. There are not a lot of paintings but they come from about 10 different museums and a few private collections and are only from great 18th C painters. I wish you to visit Venice, it has quite not change since the 18th C (well, there is a Guggenheim Museum now), and you will enjoy the city.

@topffer That is really cool that they are rare paintings. I haven't seen actual paintings just copies of pictures online. I'm sure they do not compare to the actual siting. I can only imagine! It is definitely on my bucket list.

I would be unable to live in a "new" country like Australia. I need old streets and stone architecture around to feel good.

@topffer Australia isn't a country -- it's a banana republic and now a sh*thole.

Certainly ! These paintings are three century old, and quite nothing has changed !

@topffer That doesn't sound like fun... I'm not familiar with Comey's work. When I try and search him I just get stuff about the white house guy...

@BarBaraPrz Lol, my fault, it is Cosey, not Comey, he is Swiss. Corrected. The 2018 great prize is American, you certainly know it : Richard Corben. So we will have a Corben exhibition next year

oh, yes, I visited several comics exhibitions, the only one that interested me was the retrospective exhibition on the work of Cosey, the 2017 great prize. The problem is that it is in an old 16th C building where a maximum of 30 persons/floor is authorized, so I had to queue about an hour for this one.

The city where I live does not own most of them, they are here only for 2 months.

I visit often museums, but this one about Venice during the 18th C was unexpected in a comics festival, and I loved it.

And it is not a Canaletto. It is a dream exhibition, really.

I was not expecting that at all, it was a pleasant surprise.