The Bridge of Sighs

I know scaffolding can be ugly, but I can't say I find coating the sights and landmarks in advertising any more beautiful. Sigh.

St. Mark's Campanile

I love to get to the top of buildings – I just never tire of the bird’s eye view. Maybe because it’s fun to point out the things I recognize, or maybe because it re-calibrates my world view a little.

Dome climbing is no longer on the approved list of activities my heart can manage, so I have wistfully passed up climbing these last few days. But today I was gifted with a tower that had an elevator – the Campanile at St. Mark's. The 8 euro charge was a bit of a rip-off, and it was hard to justify a post climb gelato when I had felt no burn to earn it, but I got to see the view of Venice from the top. And it was good.

Venice Biennale

Today I had a second chance to see a Venice Biennale, the first being two years ago. Last time there was much art that engaged some of the more difficult things going on in the world at the time, especially things to do with war and its aftermath, and the violation of human rights. It was tough to get through in some places, but I felt it was worth the effort.

This time, I’m not so sure. There was certainly enough art to wear me out, but I didn’t really get a relationship going with much of it, even after reading the signs, which were drowning in artspeak. I get that at these upper echelons of formal art exhibitions, artspeak is necessary, and a valid form of communication with other artspeakers, but I also feel that perhaps it can be used in an exclusionary way, keeping those of us with less art theory and criticism education at arm’s length. Do we really only want to make art for other artists? Or should we aim to reach a broader audience? Interesting questions to ponder.

In the end, though, formality and artspeak aside, I think we just plain love what we love. When you are moved by art, it doesn’t matter how you got there. If you find beauty in a piece of asphalt (and yes, there was a work that was a patch of asphalt) then that’s where your beauty is. I don’t think we can allow the critics to tell us what good art is. I think we know it when we see it.

And so on that note, I offer you a couple of pieces I liked. The first is by Lygia Page, and it was made of delicate strands of gold thread that created beams of ethereal light. The second, all made from black bungee elastic, was by Tomas Saraceno. The pix don’t really show the dimensionality and the geometry of the work, but it was wonderful to see, and we could climb into the installation.

The last piece was outside the venue. I thought it was a hoot – I guess anyone can be an art critic!

Postcard #3

The Duomo from Piazzale Michelangelo.

Performance Art on the Streets

Leonardo's Madonna of the Rocks, performed.

Florence from Above

If you want to see the whole city at once, head up to the Piazzale Michelangelo. It’s up a pretty big hill in the south east corner, south of the Arno. No, dear friends, I didn’t walk it. I took a bus up the hill (number 12 or 13 for future reference), although I rewarded myself with refreshing lemon gelato as if I had hiked!

FYI - the panoramic pic above was done with the iPhone Pano app - pretty slick for a phone camera, eh?

The square boasts an odd tribute to Michelangelo: a bronze copy of his David, on a pedestal bearing the four unfinished figures from the tombs of the Medici. Perhaps it is an apt representation as David was early in his career, and the Medici tombs late.

Rick Steves’ guide book says that in the evening, the local youth go to this square to “lick ice creams and each other.” I bugged out while the sun was still shining!

An Angel Paints an Angel

Today I went to the Museum of San Marco, a well restored 15th C monastery that boasts the largest collection of Fra Angelico’s work (so named because he painted like an angel). No pix were allowed, which was a shame as they didn’t take up the slack in the postcard department. Sigh. The image above is from the web.

Fra Angelico’s “Annunciation” fresco is an important stop on the art history road. We get introduced to it right before the juicy Renaissance stuff, and what we usually see is a rather pale picture in one of the two main art history tomes used for introductory classes. There is a winged angel in a pink robe, kneeling before the Virgin Mary, who is sitting in a stunning (for its time) 3D space. Fra Angelico straddled the place between his flatter, medieval style training and the explosion of dimensional realism that was to become the Renaissance.

Fresco is one heck of an art discipline. My friend Adam pointed out that fresco demands immediate commitment and precision. You paint directly onto a section of wet plaster, catching it in the sweet moments between too wet and too dry. No indecision, no noodling. If you goof up, you have to chisel it out – but then you run the risk of damaging the part next to it and having to chisel it out too. One would think that this would lead to less detail, but no, not at all in the case of artists like Fra Angelico who commanded it.

One of the things we struggle with at the university these days is getting students to understand that the mediated experience of seeing it on the internet just isn’t enough. Location matters. Light matters. Your viewing position matters. The group experience of the crowd matters. Size really does matter!

This “Annunciation” is a case in point. The angel’s wings traverse a rainbow of colors from the golden leading edge to the deep red flight feathers, which are infused with a subtle shimmer. The edges of the robe are leafed in gold pattern, along with both halos. The angel’s face is concentrated, intent, focused on Mary. Mary’s face is a wonder of somber emotions – comprehension, a little fear, perhaps even a slight resignation. The Latin inscription below gets straight to the point, beginning “Salve Mater…” “Greetings Mother…” This is heavy stuff, finding out that you are to be Mother to the Son of God… no wonder Mary has some trepidation. And this was all done in FRESCO.

My point is that none of these details showed up for me in Art History 101. I’m not really sure there is a way that it could, given the limitations of projected photography in a lecture hall, and the speed at which the information has to be delivered. Suffice to say that I’m so very grateful I got to see it in person today. And I think I’ll pass on trying fresco!