Buona Pasqua in Firenze

If you missed the blowing up of the cart in front of Santa Maria del Fiore, you might have seen these wonderful Chiana cows being walked through the streets of Florence. They are beautiful animals, one of the oldest breeds of cattle in Italy, bred in Tuscany, they date from Roman times, and are revered throughout Italy for their wonderful temperaments and delicious meat. These lovely cattle were very beautiful on their promenade through Florence, and seemed relaxed in all of their Easter finery.

The tree of life at Orvieto Cathedral

This exquisite sculptural rendition of the tree of life adorns the facade of the cathedral at Orvieto. If you click on the image you will see the details of the carving, and depictions of the creation, the births of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, The Temptation, the Expulsion from the Garden, and the acquisition of agriculture and learning.

The facade of Orvieto was designed by the Sienese Lorenzo Maitani c. 1310. The sculptural decoration is in varying styles, the distinguishing feature being an extraordinarily low and delicate relief.

On the opposite side of the main door, is pictured, in extraordinary detail, the Day of Judgement.

Italy in the time of carciofi!

Carciofi: artichokes! Beautiful and abundant at this time of year in Italy, and so many varieties, from tiny ones without chokes, to these large purple globe artichokes we found in the market in Orvietto; you can slice them fresh and have them raw in salads, fry them in olive oil and add parmiggiano, boil them with butter and lemon juice, or just admire their beauty!

ASCII Colosseum

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Here's an ASCII image of part of the Colosseum. I had
to crop the photo because of the narrow margins of the
blog, but you can sort of see the arches.
I wrote my Rome essay about the 20,000 slaves that
built this theatre, and what slavery means today.
Luckily I didn't have to employ any slaves (or effort)
making this... http://www.text-image.com/ is just one
of many automatic ASCII generation sites online.

Roma

The sweetest place in Rome has to be the Map Room in the Vatican. Having worked heavily with maps last semester as collage materials, I was amazed at the beauty and scale of the frescos. It was originally created for Pope Gregory XIII, was started in 1581 and completed only one year later. I was particularly interested in the maps in the context of truth and fiction. They were meant to be accurate depictions of regions in Italy, but mixed with the jagged coasts and mountain ranges of the maps, are sea monsters and other mythic figures. One has to wonder to what degree these beasts were believed to be real, back when they were painted. If the maps were presented as truths, than were the monsters presented in this light as well?

The Great Cathedral in Florence

As much time as I love to spend in the downtown core of Florence, I find myself drifting away from the center just as often. All of the winding roads I walk encourage me to explore this place, right down to the intricate details of it’s fascinating culture. I notice many contrasts in this city and each of them seem to thrive off one another in order to keep this old city alive. The preservation of architecture throughout numerous centuries, the mass-consumerism and tourism flooding the downtown area, the diversity of ethnicities, and the love for artistic expression, whether it be from the renaissance or from artists much like ourselves. These traits can be found not only scattered throughout the city, but also colliding at one central point. The ringing strings of our guitars and beats of our bongo drum has helped us in meeting people from all over the world. The same place where people have worshipped for centuries, and the same spot where Brunelleschi overcame huge obstacles in the construction of his monstrous cathedral. It is in Piazza di Porta San Giovanni where the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore towers far above any other structure in Florence. The intricate detail of this cathedral is so incredible it almost becomes overwhelming, but for me it is the recent memories I have been fortunate enough to salvage that I will never forget.

Rome post

So I wrote some haikus.

here is one on Rome in general:

Rome: Tourists with sass,

Monument, monument, church,

Damn, this stuff is OLD.

Now here are some on my essay topic, the Vestal Virgins, the only female priesthood in Ancient Rome. We saw their temple in the Roman Forum. Just for some general information, the Vestal Virgins were a group of young woman chosen to tend to the sacred fire of Vesta, Vesta being the pagan goddess of the hearth. The fire they tended was the symbolic hearth of the Roman people, symbolizing the heart of Rome. The women were sworn to celibacy (hence Vestal VIRGINS) and if they broke this oath, or let the sacred fire housed in the temple of Vesta go out, they were BURIED ALIVE! Anyway the Temple of Vesta remained active until Christianity became prevalent and pagan cults were banned in 394 CE.

The haikus:

Porcal sings the lore:

Virgins! Temples! Sacred fires!
Buried alive? Hottt!

I guess this job comes

With perks: Free food, swiming pools.
But cults? Not my thang.

For Roman women

Pater-Familias ruled.

But for Vestals? Nope!

Time VS. Architecture

Rome Trip

Maps, Maps and more Maps

While visiting Rome and exploring the Vatican I came across a hall called The Galleria delle Carte Geographiche that really caught my attention. As I walked through the glass doors all I could see was a golden tunnel with frescoes covering the sides. Egnizio Danti designed 40 the maps illustrate extreme detail and accuracy through the Galleria maps are hundreds of years old they still relate to modern day and show a timeless portrayal of cartography. They display a city or town a city or town from an Arial perspective including streets, buildings, rivers, parks hills and mountains. It is clear that I take such interest in these maps because I am dealing with cartography and maps as a decorative image in my own artwork. Researching confirmed for me the importance and timelessness of the invention of the map.

Birds!

Roma Termini. Flocks and flocks... Those crazy birds are European Starlings—or in Latin—Sturnus vulgaris. Due to the warmer weather (global warming) they are migrating further north thus now inhibiting Rome. For about two years a study was conducted regarding their flying patterns and the similarities with human behaviour—as an example—investors trends and market research. As it turned out, the birds did not interact with all the birds “within a certain distance, as most models had assumed, but rather with a fixed number of neighboring birds—usually six or seven”. This could be similar to human behaviour as “Jean-Philippe Bouchard, a theoretical physicist who works with a Paris hedge fund, remarked: ‘people are extremely influenced by their neighbors, by fashions and fads’”.

Regarding the sound of the flock—the European Starling does not sing—it “murmurs”.

An interesting fact about the European starling is that the bird is not native to North America. It was introduced there by a group of individuals who wanted every bird mentioned in Shakespeares plays to live in the new continent. About 100 birds were set free in Central Park, New York in 1890 and presently the European starling numbers more than 200 million birds all across the continent.

Sources
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/magazine/22birds.t.html
http://www.eternallycool.net/?p=997
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/European_Starling.html

EARTHQUAKE - In Florence???

Early Saturday morning I opened my eyes and realized my bed was swaying. I asked myself, "Am I still asleep and dreaming?” The swaying stopped. Then I felt the tremors in my stomach as I tried to go back to sleep. Then it happened again. My bed began to rattle and shifted from against the wall. I sat up and tried to comprehend what was happening. Was it just REALLY windy outside and our top floor flat was falling subject to it, or was it something else?

Tuesday morning I read this...

Saturday March 1, 08:40 PM

Earthquake felt in Florence, Bologna

An earthquake in central Italy measuring 4.2 on the Richter scale was felt in the cities of Florence and Bologna, news reports said.

No injuries to people or damage to buildings were immediately reported in the earthquake which struck early Saturday, the ANSA news agency said.

The quake's epicentre was calculated to be in the Mugello region north of Florence, near the central Appenine mountain range that runs down the length of Italy, ANSA said.

Secret

Students study it. Tourists gravitate towards it. It wasn’t until early this morning while our small class was standing within 20 feet of it does Peter whisper to us “come here children, I need to whisper or we will get kicked out”. I thought he just wanted us in closer because we we’re taking up too much space, but then he whispers “it’s a fake, it’s not real” The Famous Leonardo Da Vinci painting The Adoration of the Magi is a lie.

In 2002 the Uffizi Gallery had commissioned Maurizio Seracini, a diagnostician of Italian art to undertake a study of the paint-surface to determine whether the painting could be restored without damaging the fragile work. Due to the age and fact that this is incomplete many questioned if it was necessary to take such action and if so could it perhaps result in ultimately destructing the painting? The Adoration of the Magi is the under painting of what was to become a completed work. Using an infrared light Seracini found a charcoal base drawing covered in fingerprints identical to those on other works completed by Da Vinci. This drawing has protective layer white that had time to crack and peel before more painting was completed. Not only that but the current painting does not correspond to the drawing underneath...For example, the temple in the painting’s current state is in ruin however, Leonardo had drawn the workers rebuilding it. His drawings contained more whimsical aspects to it such as an elephant and more faces in the picture’s lower left hand side. Leonardo wasn’t painting a world falling apart but a world coming together. A world emerging from the ruins. Therefore not only does the findings of under painting completely change the meaning of the painting, but now that leaves us to wonder whose work is this???

Apparently here you can see the image underneath online, unfortunately it is only for PC users, so I haven’t looked yet…. But try:
http://www.geoplayer.com/gateways/adoration.html

When In rome, the Class was lucky enough to

check out this church called San Luigi Dei Francesi, which contains a cycle of three paintings by the baroque master Caravaggio. Housed in the Contarelli Chapel near the back of the church, the three paintings are an unbelievable sight, with their almost nauseating attention to detail and dynamic chiaroscuro. They show three crucial moments in the life of St Matthew: his calling to service by J.C., his writing of the gospel from divine inspiration, and his assassination/martyrdom.

Seeing these paintings was a truly awesome experience. I was speechless, stunned even, by

not only the uncanny technical mastery displayed, but also by the painting's modesty. They depict the Saint as a dishevelled old man with an age-worn face and dirty feet. Caravaggio's later paintings carry the weight of his genius, in that they display the ordinariness, the everyday humanity that he believed the miracles of the bible were really about. His work did not idealize the world around him, the world around him was his ideal subject.

Blessed are the cranes

Rome, photo by miriam

Rosaries for Sale!

This is a street vendor in Rome. In Toronto the currency of the street vendor is hotdogs, in Rome it is religious items. I sought out Virgin Mary pendants as symbolic of purity in a patriarchal fortress. Here are mixed the bizarre elements of factory made commodities and spirituality in the same setting. There is an immense irony of owning a so-called spiritual object, particulary when it says MADE IN TAIWAN on the back, even more so when collected from under the row of snow-globes and miniature coliseums. But there is also a kind of beauty in the notion that all it takes is an image to summon the entirety of one’s faith. It is in the reflection and articulation of my attraction to the pendants that I am able to formulate her assimilation into my secular image collection: her portrait maintains it’s place as a kind of historical earth goddess, she is the mother of fertility that you read about in history books, post apocalypse. Photo by Jesse Albert

The Gentle Doors of Death

On my visit to Rome, to my surprise I took away something of inspiration that was contrary to what others thought would influence my work, even that of my own. Rather than be inspired entirely by the objective and psychological dialects of my work, I was reminded of the intuitive and indescribable subjective feelings I get when I see and make art, that I often loose in the ‘habit of art making.’ The Doors of Death sculpted by contemporary artist Giacomo Manzù, were designed as a set of doors to St. Peter’s Church in the Vatican City and have come to inspire me in more ways than one.

The Doors of Death, which were once used for funeral processions, remind me of how doors in general come to shape and fulfill to our desires. As a devise they control an opening of a space for instance or they call on to perform certain task. But for me, these doors do more than just behave. Manzù has sculpted and expressed the meaning of human suffering and death in ten scenes on the door. The scenes he created show violent and aggressive acts of death, yet the ways in which he has molded the forms are that of the opposite, simple and gentle. Rather than feel agitated by the scenes, I get lost in the contours of the forms, and I feel calm, free from the pain that I am suppose to feel. These feelings one gets when looking at art oftentimes speaks louder than what the art piece is meant to tell.

The Colossus of Rome

The Roman stadium that was once filled with spectators for its gladiator games, animal hunts and executions is now just as happening a place as it was in 80 AD. People flocked in from all sides cameras raised and eyes focused.....on their viewer screens. This amazing amphitheater with all its history was the highlight of my trip to Rome. However it did seem to spoil the experience a little when looking around and realizing that the buildings history was now a business. Surely the stadium was built for such a reason, but nearly 2 millennia later with the buildings original purpose long past and we still pay to get in? Business must be booming for the Romans. Other than the tourist feel, lineups, metal detectors, entrance fees and armed law enforcement the amphitheater was everything I had expected and been anxious to see. Sadly Russell Crowe did not make an appearance.

Napoli = amazing

I remember at the beginning of the year, a group of us went to dinner at the St. James Church. There was a speaker from the American Embassy, who was a bit of a mongoose, telling us that Florence was NOT a Renaissance Disneyland, so we had to watch our backs. But compared to much of Italy, Florence is a theme park. Florence's historic center is geared towards tourists, and I never get the sense of local culture when I am here. The historic district of Naples, on the other hand, feels really lived in. There are groups of people interacting on the streets they live on, sassy little children harrassing everyone in their charming Neopolitan dialect, the most delicious and extremely cheap food, friendly and helpful locals, and quite a bit of vandalism and garbage. So so lively! We went into beautiful cathedrals that were completely empty, and ate the best pizza in the world (honestly) at a place called Pizzeria Di Matteo.

The contemporary local art in Naples is mainly paper mache (cartapesta in Italian) and ceramics. We found one artist shop where they used classic Neopolitan folklore to create highly detailed modern-looking characters, like Pulcinella, who is similar to Arlecchino of Venice. The cartapesta sculpture above was just out on the street. It was a nice change from the marble and bronze pieces we always see.