For The Birds.

The cold wind and spitting rain caught Stacy and I as we stepped off the 2 1/2 hour ride on a local train.



A walk through the city gate, and up the hill took us to the Basilica of Saint Frances of Assisi where the artist Giotto painted important frescoes.



Giotto is not as familiar an artist as, say, Michelangelo or Leonardo, but he is a towering figure not only in the history of art, but in the history of western culture. He turned the fixed conventions of medieval pictures into the art of observation, creating more natural representations of people in the world. These important Giotto's tell the story of the life of Saint Francis of Assisi. To see them click Giotto.

The purpose of so many frescoes in churches is to teach about important Christian ideals (not brought up a Catholic, please read my remarks in the spirit of respectfulness with which I write). These frescoes are an inspiring tribute to St. Francis who offers a universal lesson in humility and respect for man's relationship to nature. Click St. Francis of Assisi to learn more. Perhaps Saint Francis was an inspiration to Giotto, for a saint who had the humility to speak with birds might have inspired Giotto to respect the world as it is and represent it more faithfully.



Though Giotto's pictures may still seem too primitive, and the life of Saint Francis too ascetic for contemporary tastes, they both helped build a bridge from the medieval world to the modern. They gave us modern eyes.

My pilgrimage to see Giotto was also an a eye opening encounter with Saint Frances of Assisi. As we left the Basilica and walked back towards the main gate, the sun was breaking through the grey March clouds.

Our Future Past?

The streamlined train glided out of the Florence terminal and headed for Rome.



Arriving mid-morning, Stacy, Ben, and I made for our hotel on foot through wide bustling boulevards instead of cramped Florentine streets.




Our hotel was in the midst of street vendors selling everything from zucchinis to flip-flops. The window and shutters opened to the street market three floors below. The day was partly sunny and cool.



A short hop on the graffiti gilded subway train brought us to the foot of the Colosseum, a startling sight as we emerged from the subway tunnel.





The gate to the Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum was a short walk. Tickets in hand, we entered to encounter the crumbling brick edifices and broken marble columns of ancient Rome.



Like a deep deja vu, the ruins pricked a residual collective memory. More than just remembering from books, there was the foreboding sense that this is us, with the same familiar streets, houses, and shops. This skeleton of Rome is a reminder that our own civilization may only have a few short fragile years.

Here are some photos of our 36 hours in Rome. This first is a glance across one of the Roman arches towards a Baroque era church that sits just above the forum. The church facade uses the architectural elements found in these Roman structures.



The interior of the Colosseum.


Trevi Fountain.



The Pantheon.



Interior of the Pantheon (now a church).



Rome landscape with Vatican dome in background.



The Vatican.



After two days of marching about the city, we were beat. A last meal before heading back to Florence.

Trapped

Wet clothes trapped in the washing machine is not a good situation. No matter how I pulled, tugged, and cajoled the darn thing, the door would not open. The machine worked ok, I saw the clothes tumble around as they should. Other than taking two hours to complete the washing cycle, all was well until I went to retrieve the clothes.



The miniature washer is tucked into a corner of the terrace. Since the temperature seldom drops to freezing, keeping it outdoors works fine and makes more room in the apartment. There is a lot of laundry drying outside (though only from windows not visible from the street), so automatic dryers may not be common. People are careful about their energy use in Florence (fluorescent replacements for incandescent bulbs is universal).


In a drawer with the apartment guide, I found the instruction booklet for the machine. Oh, you have to press a button and wait for the light to go off, about two minutes, before opening the door. Phew, I was able to rescue my clothes from certain mildew!

There is a fold up drying rack. Spread the clothes around on it and hope it doesn't rain (you can take it indoors). Other than getting knocked over by the neighbor's cat, the system for washing and drying outside works well (now that I know how to open the door).

Markus' comments and Lucy's show

Markus Legner is Faculty and Course Coordinator at LdM. In his comments to an earlier post, he fixed my coffee preparation and explained the confusing plug situation. He has officially earned his title!

Lucy Jochamowitz is an artist and teacher at LdM. Her show "La donna nell'arte" opened last week in the Museo Casa Rodolfo Siviero (Rodolfo Siviero, dubbed the "James Bond" of Italian Art, helped prevent Nazi troops from sacking Italian art treasures as part of the resistance in WWII). The museum is Rodolpho's home containing his personal art collection as he lived with it. Lucy's poetic sculpture, drawing, and painting is strategically embedded into Rodolfo's collection creating surprising and moving associations.

Being A Late Night Snack

"Don't kill mosquitos on walls," so reads the apartment handbook, and there are two flyswatters in the closet (in Italian colors).


Curious items until discovering that there are no screens on the windows. A colleague from Australia said, "Italians can invent perspective, but can't figure out window screens." Another said that leaning out of windows is part of the Italian social structure, screens simply won't do (photo below from another blogger).



After waging battle with a few late night mosquitoes and, yes, squishing them against a wall or two, I went looking for mosquito netting. An everything-store (where everything spills out onto the street like Michelangelo's Laurentian Library staircase - maybe that's where he got the idea?) had a role of plastic window screen (yes!).






Yesterday, I put it up on the bedroom window. A scissors, ruler, and masking tape is all that I needed. Now I can sleep more soundly knowing I'm not l'antipasto.

LdM

Students at Lorenzo dé Medici are studying abroad for one semester, so they come from a variety of schools and experiences. I had to give a "level exam" on the first class: 45 minutes to paint a still life. Sounded crazy at first, but it allowed me to know at what level the students were working before I began the course. Here is my class.



This is a view in the studio, which is named "Peggy Guggenheim." I like the idea of naming studios. It is referred to as "Peggy."



Jonathan Woolfson, the Academic Director, is British, but now lives just outside of Florence. He introduced me to my first restaurant lunch and a good wine bar (standing only).




Marsha Steinberg is my Department Supervisor. On the day we first met, she was conversing rather, er, energetically to a person on the other side of a glass partition. She stopped abruptly, turned to me and said, "Oh, don't mind me, I yell a lot." Marsha, with her can do (and must do!) attitude is intimidating at first, but she's really a sweetheart.



Justin Thompson and I share Peggy. He's from the States, but married into a Florentine family. We went together to a contemporary art exhibition in a nearby town. On the way back, we stopped at an Irish pub(!) and talked about music and food.



This is a photo of Gene Baldini who teaches painting in the adjacent studio. He's also from the States, but has lived here for many years. On a recent afternoon, Gene introduced me to Dan, a friend who is teaching for a semester at another nearby school.

Warning: art lesson ahead.

Click on images to see them larger.

My eyes had to adjust to the dimness in the Church of Santa Felicita. To my right through an iron gate was Jacopo Pontormo's painting of The Deposition From The Cross (1528). I had seen it often in books. With a euro clunked into the machine to light the painting, I was able to see it much better, although still through the iron gate.




A painting is an invention (Definition of "invent": verb [ trans. ] create or design [something that has not existed before]; be the originator of). History decides whether a painting is a good invention or not.

History decided that Pontormo's Deposition is a good invention. To see how it's inventive, compare it to Raphael's Deposition (1508), an example of the "state of the art" in painting at the time.



In Raphael's painting, people are solidly and logically planted on the ground. Christ's body is heavy and strains the people carrying it.

Where and on what are many of the folks standing in Pontormo's painting? Some are floating to the top almost as if in zero gravity. Christ seems light as a feather.





Raphael's painting is like a play with figures spread out on a stage space. Each figure helps tell the painting's story. The background landscape has crosses on the right and a cave on the left to further provide context for the action.

Pontormo's painting is a swirling oval of expressive figures. We know the story from the title, the body of Christ, and Mary, but that's about it. There is no background accept for a cloud that stands in for a figure.



The color in Raphael's is used to realistically describe the people, objects, and the landscape, while unifying the composition.

Color in Pontormo's jumps out to create a whirl of bright blues, reds, and pinks, calling attention to itself and flattening the composition (the purply-pink tone on the bottom figure is especially outstanding).



With his Deposition, Pontormo invented a more modern way to think about painting. He didn't tell a story with figures placed solidly on a stage outfitted with props, as was expected at the time. He used the story as an excuse to make a melodramatic picture that was as much about color and composition, that is, a painting more about itself. You might say that Pontormo invented "art for art's sake."

By the way, that's the troublemaker, himself, staring out on the right.