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Reading reeds
Reading reeds A pleasing crisscross of lines, open triangles and dense clusters: broken reed stems in sunlit water at the end of the day. A play of nature tending to abstraction. Photo of the week: Manipur, India 2014
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Not to forget
Not to forget At the beginning of the 2nd World War there were 17.000 Jewish residents in the part of Amsterdam where I live. During the war 13.000 of them were deported and murdered in the concentration camps. When I walk through my neighbourhood I can ‘stumble’ sometimes upon little brass plates in the pavement.…
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Anne Frank
Anne Frank There she stands, Anne Frank, on Merwedeplein in Amsterdam where she lived 9 years of her short life till 1942. On 6 July of that year she went with her family into hiding on the Prinsengracht in what now is known as the Anne Frank House. Sculptor Jet Schepp has portrayed her all…
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Liberation Day
Liberation Day For the 75th time this year. Every year on the 5th of May we celebrate the end of the occupation by Nazi Germany. On the 7th of May 1945 the allied forces drove through this street, then called the Noorder Amstellaan, into Amsterdam, cheered and applauded by its inhabitants. A year later the…
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Oswiecim
Oswiecim Conceived at the end of the war and born in an again free Netherlands, the horrors of the Second World War have entered my consciousness through poignant images and stories. One morning in 2007, in the train from Krakow to Prague, we made a stop at Oswiecim. For us just a stopover; for 1.5…
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Auschwitz
Auschwitz (…) Er ruft spielt süßer den Tod der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland er ruft streicht dunkler die Geigen dann steigt ihr als Rauch in die Luft dann habt ihr ein Grab in den Wolken da liegt man nicht eng (…) (…) he yells play sweeter for death Death is a German-born master…
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Resurrezione
Resurrezione Crocifissione, Deposizione, Resurrezione … that’s the order of events. He is rising up there, behind the clouds. Up to heaven, invisible, but radiating his light in all directions. Photo of the week: Gubbio, Italy 2018
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Deposizione
Deposizione And here we look at the Madonna figuring in a polychrome wooden sculpture of the Deposition of Christ. Tears are dripping from her eyes. A beautiful example, as so many Romanesque Madonna’s, of truly great art. Photos of the week: Bottega (workshop) altotiberina, Gruppo della Deposizione (Deposition of Christ), detail of the Madonna, c.…
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Crocifissione
Crocifissione What I wrote in last week’s post applies to this fresco of the crucifixion as well. Especially the figure on the left of the painting – Mary I presume – is touching, with her deeply bowed head and the sadly resigned expression of her face. Photos of the week: Maestro di Montemartello (?), Crocifissione,…
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Crucifixion
Crucifixion During Lent, the weeks before Easter, I happily bring out the oratorios by Handel (Messiah), Caldara (Maddalena ai piedi di Cristo) and of course Bach (St. Matthew and St. John Passion) to immerse myself in magnificent music that recollects among other things the life and Passion of Christ. Does ardent faith play a part…
καιρός remembered
… the right moment, position chosen, shoot …
καιρός remembered 