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Kijken Zien Schilderen
Kijken Zien Schilderen To Look See Paint Looking is what we do all the time, at the other, at the world around us. When we look with attentive concentration we start seeing the other, the world, in full consciousness. That’s what Dutch painters in the 17th century were good at and were perfecting ever more…
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Mosquito meditation
Mosquito meditation “How funny, the mosquito in my cup looks like one of the characters on my bib”, thus the Jizo seems to think. Or is it not a mosquito? Or does the character on the bib refer to something completely different? Or is the Jizo amused about my silly thoughts when I took his…
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From statues to stones
From statues to stones As the years go by and memories of the deceased children for whom they were erected fade, these ancient statues gradually weather and lose their Jizo-like features in a natural process of decay. Carved from stone into statues, and returned from statues to stone. Photo of the week: Old Jizo statues…
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Chisaku-in garden
Chisaku-in garden Sen no Rikyu, the legendary Japanese Tea master, is said to have loved the garden of the Chisaku-in temple. Rikyu died in 1591, while the temple was constructed in 1601. So the garden must have been layed out well before. I can imagine Rikyu sitting on a rock, contemplating the beauty of the…
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Procession
Procession In 2022 I was passing through the Museo Correr in great hurry when my eye fell on this relief fixed on a wall in one of the rooms. I quickly took a photo but had no time to search for a description of the work and I haven’t been able to find information about…
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Friends
Friends They had become our distant friends, the Himalayan peaks that we used to see from our house during the different seasons, year after year. Back in Europe I miss my Indian friends, the ones of stone as well as the ones of flesh and blood. Photo of the week: View from Maat village, Almora,…
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Binsar
Binsar Having left our abode in the Himalayan foothills, I now and then look at the pictures I took there. They let me return virtually to the places that have touched me and of which I cherish the memory. Photo of the week: Binsar Reserve, Uttarakhand, India 2018
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La serenissima and India
La serenissima and India La Serenissima, ‘the most serene Republic of Venice’, was a dominant trading power during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, not only in the Mediterranean but as far as the Middle East and Asia. That’s why we see on one of Kiefer’s paintings which he made for the exhibition in 2022 in…
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Tidal wave
Tidal wave “It sometimes happens that there is a convergence between past and present moments, and as they come together one experiences something of that stillness in the hollow of a wave about to break.” (Anselm Kiefer) In the past, Venice was a formidable maritime power whose ships triumphed over turbulent seas. Now, with the…
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Vintage Kiefer
Vintage Kiefer The enormous paintings that – for the time of the exhibition – covered the painted walls of the Sala dello Scrutinio in the Palazzo Ducale in 2022 consist not just of paint on canvas. Whole bicycles, shopping trolleys, clothes and, of course, little submarines are attached to the canvasses. But it’s through the…
καιρός remembered
… the right moment, position chosen, shoot …
