Category: Italy
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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…
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Palazzo del Podesta
Palazzo del Podesta When you look back from the steps of the Palazzo dei Consoli in Gubbio you see at the other end of the Piazza Grande the façade of the Palazzo del Podesta. The irregular distribution of the differently sized windows in the huge wall is fascinating. It invited me to make this composition.…
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Greek Madonna
Greek Madonna This Madonna, painted on cloth, appeals to me. I think it is the expression of her longish face that made me look at her intently. I feel in it a tinge of sadness. There runs a scarcely perceptible fold through the hanging cloth as a result of which the left half of her…
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Art with a wink
The one girl looks intently at the other, and vice versa. Each one utterly intrigued by the sight of the other. I remember I had a funnily-meant little book long ago, called ‘Kunst met een knipoog’ (‘Art with a wink’), with a winking Mona Lisa on the cover. Here it is not the girls that…
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Ossuarium
In one of the orthodox churches of Paleochora I saw to my surprise a big open stone reservoir filled with human bones: an ossuary inside the church in full view! I have understood that ossuaries came into use in places where graveyard space is scarce. After a few years in the ground the remains of…
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Blissful sleep
After their lovemaking ▲ and ▼ are plunged into a deep, blissful sleep. It must be one of those hot Californian summer days in the 1960’s. As a work of art it may be fragile and look dated, but the tender sweetness of the scene is able to touch the heart. Photo of the week: California art,…
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Venice upside down
It is always a nice sight, the clotheslines with clean laundry tightened between opposite houses across narrow streets in the old towns of southern Europe. But may we ask you to be a bit more thoughtful next time, dear washerwoman (or man), when hanging your beautiful towels to dry in the attractive contre jour light…
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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 of those rarities among artists, monastic…
καιρός remembered 