Tag Archives: Michelangelo pieta

David

Posted on May 1, 2014 | Leave a comment

Yes, Michelangelo’s David, seems to be falling down because his ankles cannot bear the weight.

People joke and sneer and talk about his private parts, which are not private. Read The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone. Yes, there is a movie but read the book.

Michelangelo Buonarotti lived near Settignano, marble capital of the world, and no one could sell that huge block of marble. It is said that painting is adding, and sculpture is taking away.

That he saw David in that huge block and chipped away at it until he reached David is remarkable. Why people on Slate want to wipe this incredible human effort off the books and make jokes about it is beyond me.

I’ve only seen him once and have often seen a duplicate outside the Palazzo Vecchio facing Piazza Signoria and easily seen while sipping espresso outside at Rivoire, a people-watching mecca. Mostly tourists these days. Do they really know who Fr Girolamo Savonarola was? Have they seen his cell at San Marco, where Fra Angelico painted his best works. Walk up the stairs and tell me Fra Angelico’s Annunciation nearly stopped your heart as I would not be surprised.

I was there on 9.11 and we all held hands on the Piazza while one bell rang to mourn the dead. I couldn’t fly home, they wouldn’t let me go further then Newfoundland and I had only summer clothes. Fake David and Poseidon (the Great White One) looked upon us and we moved on in life only to be persecuted by our own government for the past 12 years under pseudo-patriotic terms.

The Sistine Chapel was closed for years but I got to see it, and the Pieta, before one was restored and before and after the Pieta was damaged. Placing David on a space vehicle is not viable to me for many reasons.

Our art and heritage is something humans should treasure. I broke my ankle 25 years ago and it is having issues these days. I wouldn’t go to space or lie down for the rest of my life for that, when an ice pack can suffice.

Save David. Michelangelo went to Santo Spirito and was allowed to illegally perform autopsies as that was the only way he could fully study the structure of the human body that he exemplified in his David and Pietas (one is in the Duomo Museum that is unfinished and raw and powerful.

We have some common themes that keep up together, let’s hope we keep it that way. Dee

 

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Travel Experiences

Posted on October 15, 2013 | 1 comment

Museo Villa Puccini on Torre del Lago in Tuscany is a wonderful place. Why? It tells me what gave Giacomo Puccini the inspiration to write my favorite operas.

The house isn’t fantastic, but when we went there I recognized a photo on the piano of a very young girl and her grandfather and knew this grand-daughter would be showing us around and telling stories.

As I saw the home, grounds and lake I liked to get a feeling for what inspired someone to write such great works as La Boheme and Madame Butterfly.

Today, I’m a top contributor to a major travel site and they’d rather know the entrance fee and whether they accept strollers. You know who you are because you won’t let me get in touch to write reviews of esoteric things like music, images, or experiences that don’t fit the common format.

I’ve an entirely new concept for you but you don’t have a phone and won’t answer email. So people worldwide will be bereft to never have seen Artemesia Gentilleschi’s self-portrait. She was the only female artist of the Renaissance known today and I saw it at the Queen’s Gallery on a brief viewing and it is now back at Buckingham Palace for no-one to see. The marvel is that I joined a group of women at the corner of the room with the painting and it was a remarkable experience to talk of art and women.

Travel sites don’t want to hear about that, only about whether you traveled couples, single or on business.

At the 1964 World’s Fair, I was five and my parents took me down an escalator to a blackened room. In the middle was a spotlight on the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, Michelangelo’s Pieta. The escalator brought us right back up without an opportunity to exit to see the work. A few years later some jerk shot it so it is now under supreme security. I went back at age 25 to the Sistine Chapel to see it again. It still takes my breath away.

No travel site will let me write that, they want to know if it has restrooms.

I saw the legendary Scylla and Charybdis and took a yacht through the Strait of Corinth. There are stories around that.

All the travel site wants to know if I traveled within the past year or my review is invalid. How long has the Parthenon stood? Will it have changed but a few centimeters if I was there ten years ago?

Perhaps this story site will change a bit not just about travel but things of the heart wherever they may be, at home or abroad. I may still do hotel and restaurant reviews but am limited by that company’s small-mindedness. They say thanks for being a top contributor but don’t want ideas so I’ll plant some here to make travel better for all, and share stories that may stir your heart. Cheers, Dee

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Favorite Works

Posted on April 3, 2013 | 1 comment

They must go beyond food, because food is eaten and gone. Thank you K for telling me I need to take photos of my food. Usually it’s in the oven and J comes home from work and Z needs to go out.

That must be the reason everyone needs to take a photo of it before it is dug into by family and friends and the platter looks like a pack of wolves got into it.

Mind you, that is what the cooks enjoy. A wholehearted feast.

I found a book the other day called The Art of the Renaissance by Peter and Linda Murray, Thames and Hudson, pub.

In it were pages I assigned myself to write nearly 20 years ago, on Annunciations. I’d written about Botticelli, Veneziano, Donatello, Ghiberti, Giotto, Leonardo da Vinci, Lippi, del Sarto, Ghirlandiao and others.

I can tell you now that I was always inspired by the first European work I ever saw, Michelangelo’s Pieta at the World’s Fair in 1964. I saw it later outside the Sistine Chapel while it was under construction (yes, I have never seen the Chapel).

This is the greatest work of art I will always remember in my heart and soul. Next, though, is Donatello’s Annunciation, which I visit every time I am in Florence. This is where I do my penance.

It is in Santa Croce, where many great people are buried and remembered. It also held Cimabue’s cross that was caught in the 1966 flood and now is at the Uffizi. Try to get online for tix so you don’t have to stand in line there. Also, never try to drive a car there unless you are completely nuts.

The Fra Filippo Lippi Annunciation is also worth seeing at San Marco but there are many more so let’s get back on topic.

It is limestone and terra cotta with gilding, commissioned by the Cavalcanti family. Mary is recoiling gently in fear but instantly turns toward the angel with one hand on her heart and another near her stomach indicating acceptance of God’s will.

It is a porta clausa, closed doors indicating Ezekiel’s version his prophecy of her virginity. There is no hardware on the closed doors. This is a raised or relief portrait and it is perfectly executed. I wrote of its similarities to Piero della Francesco’s porta clausa in Arezzo.

Her feet are moving away from the angel, yet her hand is on her heart and the other over her womb and she is looking as if she trusts the angel and is accepting her fate.

I go to Sta. Croce every time I am in Florence, and revel in Donatello’s wooden Jesus on the crucifix as well. Those who know, know that there are other rooms to ponder, right off the main altar. If you’re lucky, the leather shop will be open.

Please donate for your visit and be quiet always, especially during Mass. Careful while you see the memorials, or at least the Fifth Level of Hell awaits.

Thank you for reading. Art IS for the masses, all of us not born to privilege and I am you but I paid to go to college. One of my favorite works, a self-portrait of Artemesia Gentileschi, was on exhibit at the Queen’s Gallery in London several years ago and I joined a cadre of women admiring it and Ms. G’s flamboyance and grit that let her do so during the Renaissance. History and art. Language, writing, reading, ‘rithmatic and you’ll get the hang of it, kids! Parents? Get a museum membership and take your kids.

Cheers, Dee

 

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