Category: Europe
-
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 door we see the broad lines…
-
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 great, intense beauty;…
-
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 empty…
-
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…
-
Poster girls
Five people gazing, not at each other but each one in a different direction. And then there is a sixth one, me, capturing the scene in my own field of vision. Well, two of the five people are not there as large as life. But, larger than life in black and white, they certainly cannot be…
-
Sleeping beauty
The bacchante sleeps off her glow of last night’s pleasure under the attentive eyes of a row of men. Only they can see from their point of view that this Maenad is actually a hermaphrodite. The generous curves of her soft, feminine body are beyond their reach. The kouros stands tall in the characteristic posture…
-
Holiday mood
I happily see myself sitting on this terrace, with a good book, a glass of wine and a bowl of pistachios from the trees below. From time to time looking out over the Gulf of Aegina, daydreaming, seemingly unmoved by the misery in which a large part of the population of this ancient country is plunged by…
-
Got you!
Life is: eating and being eaten. In the last instance it means death, but death for one is life for the other. Such is the law of nature. Photos of the week: Vondelpark, Amsterdam, Netherlands 2009
-
Grassphalt
Living is adapting. Nature is good at it. Humans can manage quite well too, but at what price! In their ambition to rule the world they often don’t know where to draw the line. Photo of the week: Lyon, France 2008
-
Cobwebs
In Dutch one can have a head full of cobwebs, meaning you feel woolly-headed. When your head is a mess and you can’t think clearly, it may be interesting to have a good look at the cobwebs that have taken possession of your mind. They may not only be beautiful, delicate structures worthy of your…
καιρός remembered 