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Poussin's Martyrdom of St. Erasmus

Well, this is my first blog in over a month and a half. 

Where do I start? 

Okay, so we were in Montepulciano, Italy for five weeks.  Monte-P (as I heard students calling it) is a gorgeous Tuscan hill town with panoramic, sweeping views.  Alas, it's also boring and out of the way, without a train station but with a rather crappy, unreliable local bus system.  Needless to say, we were often bored.  Field trips, thankfully, took us to Rome (twice for Gabriel and I, three for Julia), Florence (twice), Assisi, Perugia, Pisa, and Siena.  Nearby towns also visited include Chiusi, Pienza, Cortona, Orvieto, and San Quirico. 

Rather than going in to detail about every single day and event, I'll provide an overview of the experience.

Worst moment:  The final day(s).  Try this one on for size: Get two hours of sleep, wake up at midnight, trudge down with all your luggage to the bus stop, take a three hour group bus jaunt to Rome's Fiumicino Airport, wait a couple hours in the earrrr-ly morning, take a two-hour flight to Frankfurt, wait another two hours there, take a sleepless, student-filled 10-hour trip to Atlanta, wait at customs, be one of the last to retrieve your suitcases from baggage claim, take a cab ride over to a local hotel to retrieve your car, drive three hours home to Statesboro, and get to bed by 10:30.  Yuck. 

Food:  Well, the pizza was good.  The bread (which the Italians don't salt or apparently flavor) was horrible.  Rome had tremendous, unforgettable gelato,  Other than that, I wasn't too impressed by any one thing.  I'm sure if we were in Rome more, I would have had more memorable culinary experiences. 

Favorite sights:  Pisa's Camposanto Cemetery, St. Peter's (and its square), the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi, Orvieto's dome, San Marco Museum in Florence, Pantheon, San Ignacio Church and San Popolo in Rome. 

The apartment:  Undesirable.  Dank and poorly planned.  I got tired of spending time in it, honestly. 

Gabriel:  Loved Italy.  Didn't want to leave.  Loved the "staples" from the grocery store: shortbread cookies, pasta, pretzel sticks, farfalini (sp?) soup, yogurt, bananas.  He thoroughly enjoyed the various means of travel - bus, train, plane, shuttle, car, stroller... Fantastic in museums and churches and about town.  Never less than 100% happy. 

Julia:  The program really pushed her to the limit.  We were both ready to go fairly early on, but she had so much work to do and the field trip days were so hectic, that it was more of a job than a vacation or pleasure trip for her.  We had our moments, though.  We came to - not to sound too corny - some wonderful, tender, bonding realizations that we can't imagine spending our lives with any one other than the three of us. 

Works of art seen:  Well, I had a lofty goal of trying to see 103 works of art - if you remember me posting a list before I went.  Well, because of impracticalities of traveling to and fro Montepulciano, we didn't get up to Padua, Ravenna, and Venice, I obviously fell short of my goal.  I think I saw about 44, give or take.  Here are 10, in particular, that I loved:
- Giotto's fresco cycle of the life of St. Francis in Assisi's Basilica
- anything I saw by Michelangelo: the David, the Sistine Chapel, the Prisoners, Moses, the Risen Christ, Saint Paul
- Lorenzetti's Allegory of Good and Bad Government in Siena
- Signorelli's end-of-days fresco cycle in Orvieto
- Caravaggio's paintings in San Popolo and San Luigi Francesi in Rome
- Pozzo's marvelous ceiling and fake dome at San Ignacio 
- Fra Angelico's Annunication and frescoed cells in San Marco in Florence 
- Raphael's Madonna of the Goldfinch in the Uffizi 
- Parmigianino's Madonna With the Long Neck in the Uffizi
- Buffalmacco's Triumpf of Death and Last Judgment in Pisa

Artists I'm now more interested in:  Giotto, Pinturrichio, Cimabue, Pozzo, Martini, Perugino, Fra Angelico.  

Do I ever want to go back to Montepulciano: No. 

Well, where do I want to go if we go back to Italy:  Florence and Rome, obviously.  Venice, Ravenna, Verona, and Padua.  Maybe Milan and the Lake Como district.  (Inside joke alert...) Not the Dolomites. 

Favorite part of the trip:  Just being with the family during a weekend in Rome.  We walked ourselves ragged.  What a day.  Our calves and arms got buff, we got plenty of sun, and it was just great to be in the city Julia loves so much, being shown around.  If only the program were there instead of Monte-P.... We took plenty of pictures and saw a lot - a lot, really, in terms of the big picture.  I wish we could have got up to Ravenna or Venice, but it was nice to all be together, a little out of comfort zone.  And, no, our travel bug is not yet quenched.  Not remotely. 

Overall, it was a good experience. 




 




        

Bye...for now

Well, it's going to be a busy week around here.  Julia's brother is coming in a few days to housesit for us while we're abroad, and various things around here need to be attended to before we leave.  That said, this is a notice that this will be my last blog post until the end of June, when we get back from our trip.

Enjoy your summer, readers!   

Goals

Word of the day : 

decussate : to intersect or cross

One week until Italy! 

Here are 100 works of art I plan to see while I'm there: 
(this is a continuation of the preview I provided yesterday...)
(also, this doesn't take into account the arches, fountains, fora, and other monuments and outside architecture we'll see)  


(In Rome)

Vatican City Museums
- Sistine Chapel (Michelangelo)
- Entombment of Christ (Caravaggio) 
- Martyrdom of St. Erasmus altarpiece (Poussin)
- St. Jerome in the Wildnerness  (DaVinci)
- Madonna With Child and Saints (Titian) 
- Transfiguration (Raphael) 
- School of Athens (Raphael) 
- Niccoline chapel fresco paintings (Fra Angelico) 
- Stefaneschi triptych (Giotto) 
- San Francesco al Prato Resurrection (Perugino)

St. Peter's- Pieta sculpture (Michelangelo) 
- Bernini's baldacchino 

Galleria Borghese- Sacred and Profane Love (Titian)     
- marble Apollo & Daphne (Bernini) 
- marble Rape of Prosperina (Bernini) 
- marble David (Bernini) 
- Danae (Correggio) 
- Venus and Cupid  (Cranach the Elder) 
- The Deposition (Raphael) 
- Madonna and Child with St. Anne (Caravaggio) 
- Susanna and the Elders (Rubens) 
- Young Sick Bacchus (Caravaggio) 
- Boy With a Basket of Fruit (Caravaggio) 
- John the Baptist (in the Wilderness)  (Caravaggio) 

San Pietro in Vincoli- Moses (Michelangelo) 

 Capitoline Museum
- Dying Gaul 
- Capitoline Venus 
- Cupid and Psyche statue 
- Lo Spinario bronze sculpture 
- Colossus of Constantine 
- Rape of the Sabine Women (Cortona) 
- She-Wolf sculpture
- The Fortune Teller (Caravaggio) 
- bust of Commodus as Hercules

Santa Maria del Popolo- Crucifixion of St. Peter (Caravaggio) 
- Conversion of St. Paul (Caravaggio) 

Doria Pamphili Gallery
- Salome with the Head of John the Baptist (Titian) 
- St. John the Baptist (Caravaggio) 

Santa Maria della Vittoria- Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa sculpture 

Palazzo Barberini - Et in Arcadia Ergo (Guercino) 
- Madonna with Child Enthroned (Lippi) 
- Venus and Adonis (Titian) 
- La Fornarina (Raphael) 
- Narcissus (Caravaggio) 
- Judith Beheading Holofernes (Caravaggio) 

San Luigi dei Francesi
- Calling of St. Mtthew
- Inspiration of St. Matthew - Martyrdom of St. Matthew   (all by Caravaggio)

(In Florence)

Uffizi Gallery
- The Birth of Venus (Botticelli)
- Primavera (Botticelli) 
- Adoration of the Magi (Botticelli) 
- Annunciation (DaVinci) 
- Holy Family/Doni Tondo (Michelangelo)
- Ognissanti Madonna (Giotto)
- Bacchus (Caravaggio) 
- The Battle of San Romano (Uccello)
- Madonna of the Long Neck (Parmigianino)
- Venus or Urbino (Titian) 
- Annunciation  altarpiece (Martini)
- Rucellai Madonna (Duccio) 
- Judith Slaying Holofernes (Gentileschi) 
- Duke and Duchess or Urbino (della Francesca) 
- Madonna With Child and Two Angels (Lippi)
- Venus of Medici sculpture 
- Madonna of the Goldfinch (Raphael) 
- Santa Lucia de' Magnoli altarpiece (Veneziano) 
- Adam and Eve (Cranach the Elder) 

San Marco
- Deposition From the Cross (Fra Angelico) 
- San Marco altarpiece (Angelico)
- St. Peter of Verona triptych (Angelico)

Bargello Museum - David (Donatello)
- Bacchus (Michelangelo) 

Accademia fi Belle Arti di Firenze- Michelangelo's David  (original) 
- Michelangelo's Prisoners

Santa Maria Novella
- The Holy Trinity (Masaccio)
- Tornabuoni Chapel frescoes (Ghirlandaio) 

Pitti Palace- Holy Family (Raphael) 
- Madonna and Child (Lippi)
- Veiled Woman/La Velata (Raphael) 
- Mary Magdalene (Titian) 

Santa Croce (Home of Michelangelo's, Galileo's, Dante's, and Machiaveli's tombs)
- Crucifxion (Cimabue)
- Death of St. Francis (Giotto)

Brancacci Chapel- The Expulsion From the Garden of Eden (Masaccio) 

(At Pompeii)

- Startled Woman

(In Siena) 

Duomo- Bernini chapel
- Pisano pulpit 
- Pinturrichio's frescoes

Palazzo Publico- Lorenzetti's allegory frescoes
- Guidoriccio da Fogliano (Martini) 

(In Ravenna)

San Vitale
- Justinian and Theodora panels 

(In Venice)

Galleria d'Academia
- The Crucifixion and the Glorification of 10,000 Martyrs... (Carapaccio)
- St. George (Mantegna)
- The Tempest (Giorgione)
- Madonna and Child (Bellini)
- Christ in the House of Levi (Veronese) 
- St. Mark Rescues a Slave (Tintoretto) 
- St. Mark Rescuing a Slave From a Saracen From Shipwreck (Tintoretto)
- Legend of St. Ursula paintings (Carpaccio)
- Coronation of the Virgin (Veneziano)
- Presentation of the Virgin at the Temple (Titian) 

Guggenheim Collection- Materia (Boccioni)
- Bottle and Fruit Bowl (Morandi)
- Red Tower (de Chirico)
- Bird in Space (Brancusi) 
- The Robing of the Bride (Ernst)
- Sea Dancer (Severini)

Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari- Assumption of the Virgin (Titian) 
- Pesaro Madonna (Titian) 

(In Padua)

Scrovegni Chapel
- Life of Christ/Life of the Virgin cycle frescoes (Giotto) 


Okay, that was 103, but who's counting?  We'll see how I do! 

5/8/2013

Word of the day : 

diseuse : a woman who is a skilled and usually professional reciter

With Baz Luhrman's atrociously-reviewed revamp of The Great Gatsby opening in theaters this weekend, it's time to re-examine why the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel has long been considered the Great American Novel (an honor I, however, would bestow upon Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road.) 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2013/05/07/why-the-great-gatsby-is-the-great-american-novel/2130161/

**

Camilla Lackberg's third Swedish crime novel featuring cop Patrik Hedstrom and his girlfriend Erica is a terrific page-turner.  What starts out as a mystery involving the death of a 9-year old girl (the daughter of a friend of Erica's) found drowned and with ashes in her lungs turns into an intriguing saga of various Fjallbacka families with demons in their closets.  Though it's longer than most novels within the genre, it's never boring and always engaging.  Lackberg isn't a particularly inventive writer, but she can definitely spin a plot and she creates some memorable characters here.  I really liked the backstory here, and the revelation at the end (even if you might see it coming down the pipeline) provides a disturbing glimpse of human evil.  I found this to be a richer novel than the previous Lackberg novel I read a few years back, The Ice Princess. 

**

With our trip to Italy merely a week away, here are five works of art I want to see while I'm there: 
(Part 1 of 5)

Caravaggio:  Saint Matthew Cycle (Rome, San Luigi dei Francesi)   
Caravaggio: Crucifixion of Saint Peter (Rome, Santa Maria del Popolo) 
Caravaggio: The Entombment of Christ (Rome, Vatican Museum) 
Michelangelo: David, original sculpture (Florence, Galleria dell' Academia) 
Giotto: frescoes at Capella degli Scrovegni (Padua) 

Rainy Day

Word of the day :

fathom : to penetrate and come to understand
             : to probe
             : to measure by a sounding line 

Things just aren't - and can't possibly be - the same when Julia is not here.  It's inevitably a rainy, dreary day here in Statesboro, and Gabriel and I will somehow try to pass the time. 

* Here are my predictions for the 2nd round of the NBA playoffs.  I correctly predicted 7 of the 8 first round winners: 

San Antonio Spurs over Golden State Warriors (6 games)
         I love the way the Warriors are playing, but I'm not sure they can keep it up. 

Memphis Grizzlies over Oklahoma City Thunder  (6 games) 
        No Russell Westbrook = no chance of getting to the conference finals for OKC. 

Miami Heat over Chicago Bulls  (5 games) 
         The depleted Bulls made one of the great, gutsy stands in playoff history by willing an injury-and-illness plagued victory over the Brooklyn Nets in the first round.  And now they'll bow out of the playoffs and get ready for next season. 

New York Knicks over Indiana Pacers  (6 games) 
          I just like NY in this series.  They shoot better and they won't get pushed around inside. 


BTW, this book looks great:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Darkling-Novel-B-Chesterton/dp/1605984582/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367755232&sr=8-1&keywords=r.b.+chesterton

Texas!

Word of the day : 

exiguous :  excessively scanty, inadequate


Well, Julia leaves tomorrow for her last job interview of the year - at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas.  Hope she gets it, I really, I really do.  Gabriel and I will go about our business here - fighting off allergies, playing, reading, watching the NBA playoffs and art history docs.  

Julia and I had a double feature last night: Alex Cross and The Guilt Trip.

Alex Cross, the third James Patterson tale to hit the screen, is most notable for its swapping of Morgan Freeman's Dr. Cross for Tyler Perry's.  Perry isn't that bad in this film, doing the best he can with some really risible dialogue.  Honestly, no one is served well by the dialogue or some of the ludicrous plotting, which has Perry and his partner (Edward Burns) racing around Detroit trying to stop a crazy assassin (Matthew Fox, crazy-eyed and pumped-up) from killing important businessmen.  It's a serviceable action film, a long way from great, but watchable enough, with the enjoyably over-the-top Fox easily stealing the show.  It co-stars Cicely Tyson (Cross's mom), John McGinley (Cross's boss), and Jean Reno. 

The Guilt Trip features Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand as the Jewish son-and-mother combo we've been waiting for our whole cinematic lives - even if we didn't know we were waiting for it.  It's a perfect set-up for a road comedy from hell: Rogen is an inventor who has to drive cross-country to try and sell the cleaning product he has invented, and Babs joins him, nattering in his ear the entire time. Babs is the whole show here.  At 70, she looks great and her comic-timing is still spot-on; she manages to be charismatic even when her character is supposed to overbearing.  She has terrific chemistry with Rogen, but at times I wish the movie around them was a little better.  It's never quite as hilarious as you want it to be, though the mother and son encounter some amusing obstacles along the way, including a nearly five-pound steak.  It's a thumbs-up nevertheless - good but not great.  I've liked all of director Anne Fletcher's films so far: Step Up, 27 Dresses, The Proposal, and this one, although they've all been critically panned!  

*

Three new movies opening this weekend: 

Iron Man 3  Perhaps you've heard of this one? 

What Maisie Knew An 1897 novella by Henry James is the basis for this modern-day film about a child caught in the middle of her parents' nasty, complicated divorce.  Julianne Moore is the rock-star mother who is poison for her daughter (6-year old newcomer Onata Aprile, reputedly incredible) to be around; narcissistic, self-absorbed, philandering dad (Steve Coogan) isn't much better.  True Blood's Alexander Skarsgard is Moore's new boyfriend, the one sympathetic figure for the girl to relate to.   A painful movie about divorce and the young people caught in the wake of it, it's getting good reviews.  (Yes)

The Iceman Michael Shannon is supposed to be Oscar-worthy and riveting in this violent drama about real-life Richard Kuklinsky, a hitman for the mob who was arrested in 1986 and later claimed to have killed 100 people for the mob over two decades.  Winona Ryder is his wife, Ray Liotta a crime boss, Chris Evans a competitor hitman who works in an ice cream truck by day, James Franco as a victim, and David Schwimmer as a dim-bulb mobster.  Critics are mostly approving of it, though it's a tough sled to want to follow - let alone relate to - such an irredeemable man. 

* 

Julia and I have noticed a lot of dead armadillos down here along the sides of the roads and highways.  Before moving to Georgia, I don't think I had ever seen an armadillo outside of a zoo.  Now I see them quite frequently.  Here are 5 facts about them: 

1) They have very poor eyesight, relying more on their noses and ears to detect predators and find food. 

2) They are very good swimmers, able to hold their breath for four to six minutes. 

3) They have strong claws and very few teeth. 

4) They have low metabolic rates and almost no body far, reasons why they don't live in cold climates.  Most armadillos can't survive in a cold climate (even if it's only cold for a few days) and don't conserve or store their food and must forage for food every day.



5) Only one of the 20-plus varieties of armadillos is able to roll itself up into a ball to defend itself from danger.  All others scuttle away or dig a hole for themselves to escape in. 




Image courtesy of: 

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBeD3CcPIOg1M-JKdtI3BcSjph-wG6B1nNoSykb6LZyqe1K09R8Q18-fGbLpxU35Wc2OEUX_m1TyXF9yelOGIYSGKtY__a76zylaohlc1DoFpkUDdYgoMk8AW-fx07Wouw2mozgss5mgcR/
/armadillo.jpg

Information courtesy of: 

http://armadillo-online.org/facts.html

 


 

Wednesday

Word of the day :

nepenthe : something capable of causing oblivion of grief or suffering 
                 : a potion used by the ancients to induce forgetfulness of pain or sorrow 

It's rare to see a good movie that's actually as good - and award-worthy - as advertised.  Silver Linings Playbook sure fits the bill.  Adapted from Matthew Quick's novel, it's David O. Russell's follow-up to The Fighter, and it's a marvel of emotions and shapes - a little screwball, a little poignant, a little silly, a lot frantic, a lot moving.  It's a film that comes at you from all angles.  As the bipolar man who says "more inappropriate things than appropriate things," Bradley Cooper is outstanding - likable and infuriating.  Robert DeNiro, in his best role in years, adds humor and gravitas and looms large over an askew, choked household.  Jennifer Lawrence is a hurricane of an actress, and deservedly won the Oscar as the damaged soul who turns out to be perfect for Bradley.  It's a great cast of characters that includes Jacki Weaver's flustered but supportive mother, Chris Tucker's toned-down friend, Anupam Kher's tailgating shrink, and Julia Stiles as Lawrence's level-headed sister.  Once you get on the film's wavelength, you'll go right along with it to its crowd-pleasing ending.  Well-shot and with a terrific soundtrack, which includes the great Dylan-Cash classic "Girl From the North Country." 

*

On this date in 1825, George Inness was born.  An American landscape painter influenced by both the Barbizon School (the French realist movement that included Millet and Corot) and the Hudson River Schoo, Inness is best known for his landscape paintings which documented the progress of the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad (who commissioned Inness) in Industrial America. As seen in the above work, The Coming Storm (1878), Inness increasingly focused on wilderness and, more importantly, the spiritual elements within it.   


Here's more about the painting:

http://www.albrightknox.org/collection/collection-highlights/piece:inness-coming-storm/



Image courtesy of:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL7LGg_VdyeyqIrDbH_TA921DimiKmgX8DtRiRqYpnIOSvvkPJMe5kSIVrqlfotPa5vbbdgYNWjXW2YUE1MlnefgED84xHP5gBF2FLzRcuaS8ocBZbRGBjtdN6xTfUAo2VquFFLSZg8dA/s1600/The+Coming+Storm+%2528c.+1879+-+George+Inness%2529.jpg