Ch 13: Thomas Gainsborough Let feelings be expressed. Dadé debates sharing artists who overcame physical impairments with Mona but she controls the visit wanting to see lovers who break the 4th wall inviting the viewer into their delight with each other. Who doesn‘t want to distract themselves with pretty things when the world is a shit show? #controlyourenvironment #controlthenarrative #europacollective
Chapter 12: Antonio Canaletto Make the world stand still. Painting that captures a moment frozen in time AND more than the human eye can see irl ❤️❤️❤️ humans become accessories not the main attraction ( can just imagine the tweets this would set off) and science evolves in art, the camera obscura Canaletto uses is portable going with him instead of subjects coming to him like Vermeer #europacollective I LOVE this book
Top two books are read alones; the rest are buddy reads.
#CommissarioBrunettiNovel #fictionaltraveler2025 #tree #wildwoman #familybuddyread #europacollective #sundaybuddyread
pickI wasn‘t that crazy about this book to begin with. Not much of a story, not that great on character development. But then I started to love this story about a 10 year old girl who might be going blind and her grandfather who takes her once a week to see one piece of art in a Paris museum. Each short chapter discusses a piece of art with grandpa describing its artist and history and Mona describing her feelings about it. ⬇️
Ch 11: Antoine Watteau There‘s a downside to every celebration. “..society kind of relaxed-a society that, strained and exhausted by the solar absolutism of the preceding reign, can suddenly breathe, feel free, have fun. And weep….” Is there hope for all that is wrong with the world now? I hope sooner than later 🥂#europacollective
Chapter 10: Philippe De Champaigne Always believe miracles are possible ( I don‘t know any more about PDC than Dadé tells us here but I do like this painting, I‘d like to see it irl life) Louis XIV and his absolutism giving current political landscape vibes, golden ballroom anyone? #europacollective we need a few miracles right now but at least Dolly Parton is alive and well
Chapter 9: Nicolas Poussin Let nothing make you tremble. Paul is liquidating his assets at rock bottom prices to keep himself in liquids ???? and Dadé states you can‘t have faith without doubt. NP paints perfectly without any disorder, the opposite of real life #europacollective
Chapter 8: Johannes Vermeer The infinitely small is infinitely big. JV painting astronomers ( and geographers) like the real people they are, just going about their work dispelling the ‘truths‘ the church was trying to sell that dismissed the work of scientists. Can we see any parallels in the modern world?! #europacollective
Chapter 7: know yourself with Rembrandt‘s self portrait with an easel. All of the characters in the story, thus far, are not being truthful about something, big and small lies are being told or truth is being withheld. Rembrandt lived and worked in Amsterdam where we saw one of his famous paintings, The Night Watch, in the Rijk‘s museum. Which is HUGE! #europacollective
I‘m about 2/3 of the way through the October read for #EuropaCollective. Each chapter takes only a few minutes to read but I‘m calling up each painting or sculpture to see a big picture of it so I can follow along with the description. This is a story of a young girl who is possibly going blind, and goes each week with her grandfather to see an important piece of art. Grandpa seems to know a lot about art! We started in the Louvre ⬇️
Chapter 6: Frans Hals painting the humble folk to show they have value, something the 1% needs reminding of in current times. I don‘t think I knew FH was from Haarlem. We stayed in Haarlem when we were in the Netherlands for a week 10 yrs ago, same trip we took both boys to the Louvre. We rode bikes all over Haarlem and to the train station to go to Amsterdam. #europacollective
Chapter 5: Free yourself from matter “no one, in the history of humanity, had as ferocious an appetite for beauty as Michelangelo. “ also when do we stop playing ? 😢 #europacollective
My October plan is to read a chapter a day and take the time to savour each painting. Of course my week was NUTS and I had to catch up today with 4 chapters ??♀️a lifetime ago I took art in high school and I am loving this book so far as Dadé explains the paintings to Mona #europacollective
Reposting for @Lesliereadsalot
Hope everyone had a great summer! We‘re excited to get #EuropaCollective up and running again with Mona‘s Eyes as our October read. Just a reminder to get a copy, feel free to comment anytime, and we‘ll have the general discussion on Saturday, November 1st. Happy reading!
Hope everyone had a great summer! We‘re excited to get #EuropaCollective up and running again with Mona‘s Eyes as our October read. Just a reminder to get a copy, feel free to comment anytime, and we‘ll have the general discussion on Saturday, November 1st. Happy reading!
mcctrish, Caryl, GatheringBooks, tpixie, AmyG, kspenmoll, TheBookHippie, Gleefulreader, mhillis, youneverarrived, Sapphire, TheKidUpstairs, Kelly_the_Bookish_Sidekick, Suet624, Deblovestoread, charl08, JulietteReadsALot, Tamra, lauraisntwilder, Chelsea.Poole, squirrelbrain, Cathythoughts, BarbaraBB, CBee, willaful
#WeeklyForecast
This week I‘ll have little reading time. I hope to finish Though the Bodies Fall and make a start with the tagged book for the #EuropaCollective discussion in October.
Started this #EuropaCollective title for October around five days ago. Premise is good, first few chapters were promising, then it becomes staggeringly technical and sounds more like a lecture or crash course in art history. Not sure if it‘s worth powering through. It is beginning to bore me. I am with @Suet624 on this one. 😢😭
Repost for @BarbaraBB
After the wonderful job @jlhammar did, @Lesliereadsalot and I are happy to announce the revival of #EuropaCollective. We‘ll read and discuss an Europa Edition every three months. The tagged book will be our October read.
For more details check out Leslie‘s post.
If you want to join us, please say so below and we‘ll keep you posted!
Original post - https://www.litsy.com/web/post/2896450
#EuropaCollective
Welcome to #EuropaCollective! We‘ll be reading one book every three months, beginning with October. Feel free to read our book anytime in September or October, comment as you go along or wait for the general discussion. This will happen on the last Saturday of the month, which in this case will be October 25th. Want to be tagged or untagged, just let us know. So excited to get this going again! ⬇️
mcctrish, Caryl, GatheringBooks, tpixie, kspenmoll, TheBookHippie, Gleefulreader, Sapphire, TheKidUpstairs, Suet624, Deblovestoread, charl08, JulietteReadsALot, Tamra, lauraisntwilder, Chelsea.Poole, squirrelbrain, Cathythoughts, BarbaraBB, CBee, willaful
#SummerEnd #Readathon
#Egyptologist #archeologist #MET #PeculiarCrimesUnitMystery #14books14weeks #ThematicCozies #Travel #readyourkindle #europaeditions #audiomystery
Sadly, this book is starting to bug me. This grandfather is explaining each painting in the museums they visit to his granddaughter who is 10 years old. His explanations are even hard for me to follow. Not sure how we‘re supposed to believe she understands what he‘s talking about. I suppose if you‘re going to visit the museums the commentary would be helpful though.
The dedication page of this book. As a grandparent of children of all ages I say thank you very much. This book is giving me lots of ideas of additional things I can offer to my grandkids.
Also, the paper cover of the hardcover book opens to a large foldout with pictures of all the paintings highlighted in the book. 🔥
Once upon a time I went to Paris on my honeymoon and went to the Louvre & Orsay, then 3 years later we went again on a self funded leave from school with a 2 yr old and then again in 2015 with a 16 yr old and an almost 13yr old. This time we made it to Beaubourg. This book is a reward for all my painting. I think I might do a chapter a day with it if anyone wants to join. My painting isn‘t done yet - maybe September 1 start? #europaeditions
I won a book! Every week for 52 weeks, Mona's grandfather takes her to see a different masterpiece before she loses her eyesight.
This comes to me the same week I lost my grandmother.
I've also been contemplating doing an A-Z Eurpoa Editions challenge for myself, just because. Maybe this is the kick in the pants to start.
I have no idea how I was lucky enough to win a free copy of this book from Europa. I can‘t wait to read it.
Yay! I won a copy of #EuropaEditions Mona‘s Eyes by Thomas Schlesser!! There are fold out pages of the artwork mentioned in the book. I can‘t wait until it arrives!!
#EuropaCollective
Mona's Eyes | 
