-
Shining beauty
Shining beauty A beautiful, radiant young woman in the prime of her life. Is there anything more beautiful in this world? Throughout the centuries, she has been the muse of artists who have sought to capture her image and celebrated her pure, natural beauty in stone, on canvas, on paper, in music and, since the…
-
3 x Venus
3 x Venus La femme, toujours la femme. Constant source of inspiration for the arts. 1. A ceramic Venus turning rounds in an ‘attractively’ lit up, enclosed space. A red-light-district Venus? 2. A huge wooden Venus on the landing. Unpolished, roughly cut, she impresses me as a strong piece of nature. A Nordic Venus. I like…
-
The GEM of Berlage
The GEM of Berlage Having lived in Amsterdam for nearly half a century, the name Berlage has become very familiar to me, as have the remarkable buildings he designed for this city a century ago and which are now protected monuments often carrying his name. Like the ‘Beurs van Berlage’ (the commodity exchange) and the…
-
The LeWitt-Berlage Stairwell
The LeWitt-Berlage Stairwell With the renovation of the Gemeentemuseum in 1998 the drawing of LeWitt that had been on the walls of the stairwell since 1983 had disappeared. LeWitt must have designed hundreds of wall drawings during his lifetime. I only know a few, but drawing # 373 on the stairwell in the Gemeentemuseum was considered…
-
Rothko and LeWitt at a glance
Rothko and LeWitt at a glance Right: a person looking attentively at one of Rothko’s last paintings (Untitled, 1969, acrylic on canvas) made shortly before he took his own life in 1970. Black above gray. Middle: an open glass door. We leave the Rothko exhibition, and partly through, partly reflected in the glass of the…
-
Rothko vs Mondriaan
Rothko vs Mondriaan The painting (Untitled, 1970) in this photograph must be one of Rothko’s last, if not the last. In February of the same year he took his life. For over 20 years he had worked in his typical style: combinations of horizontal blocks of colour, one above the other. Some of his paintings are of…
-
Rothko
Rothko It was during my visit to the Rothko exhibition in The Hague last year that I was reminded of the frescoes by Fra Angelico in the monks’ cells of the convent of S. Marco in Florence (see last week’s post). Rothko had seen them too and had been equally impressed by them. One enters an…
-
Convent of S. Marco, Cell 39
Convent of S. Marco, Cell 39 Around 1440 the artist and Dominican friar Fra Angelico, aided by his pupils and assistants, painted 45 frescoes in the cells and corridors of the Convent of S. Marco in Florence. In the Encyclopaedia of the Italian Renaissance (Thames and Hudson 1981) we read about him: “He is one…
-
Lingam novelty
Lingam novelty Can an old dismantled water pump and the drainage space around it be regarded as a lingam and yoni? A certain resemblance cannot be denied. The person who has placed the tiny flower in the middle of the pump plate has nicely made his point. For the last 8 weeks I have taken you…
-
In all shapes and sizes
In all shapes and sizes Shiva’s creative presence can be felt everywhere in nature, not just in the temples and shrines dedicated to him. A rock may inspire someone to carve a relief of a lingam and yoni into it, as we can see in the photograph above, complete with worshippers on either side. Any…
καιρός remembered
… the right moment, position chosen, shoot …
