Studies for a larger painting. Images updated. Abstract
Ballerinas, three watercolor paintings (version 2)
Gary Kirkpatrick
Two Chillin’ (watercolor)
Part of a new series of brightly colored paintings based on models
Royal Monastery of Santa Maria in El Puig and the legend of Valencia’s bat
With the renewal of the €10 unlimited regional travel pass we’re again visiting the smaller towns near Valencia. Puig (officially El Puig de Santa Maria) is just 14k and less than 30 minutes away. The train wasn’t crowded on the way there, though bursting at the seams on the way back as people were joining the King’s Day festivities in Valencia.
Walking to the center of Puig from the metro stop we passed a field of recently harvested persimmons, those left unharvested sitting bright orange in the sun to tempt the passers-by. In town’s center children lined up for face painting, balloon making and such, part of the festivities associated with King’s Day, January 6, when the “kings” appeared with gifts for the newborn Jesus. The actual ranks, names, origins, appearances, and exact number are unmentioned, all these coming later on as traditions and not as history. The Kings story is only found in the Gospel According to “Mathew” (we don’t know who actually wrote any of the Gospels). The bakeries all around Spain are undeterred by any of this, happily selling round King cakes for the January 6 event, much like the ones sold in New Orleans, in case you’ve ever had one there.
Entry to the Monastery is a mere €4, which includes the obligatory guided tour. They throw in the puffingly steep climb to the museum entry. Our Spanish only guide spoke quickly, her voice often reverberating heavily off the stone and plaster walls. You have to stand in front of her to have much hope of understanding. She turns to explain the various features of the many rooms so you have to keep up. I stopped trying to do so after a while, thinking she’d found my tracking her to be odd.
She begin In 1237 when Jaume I (Jaime in Spanish, James in English) ordered the construction of a church on a hill in el Puig. A priest named Peter Nolasco (Peter is the Valenciano, Pedro the Spanish) found a Byzantine icon of what came to be called Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles, by no means the only image carrying this name. Jaume already had a castle on a nearby and taller hill – you can explore the ruins easily. The work on the church was finished in 1240 and turned over to the Ordo Beatae Mariae de Mercede Redemptionis Captivorum, the Mercedarians, an order established in 1218 by the very same priest in Barcelona. Makes me wonder how he “found” this icon.
Pilgrims flocked to the site to see Nuestra Señora, believing the discovery to have been miraculous. To better handle the crowds workers began to build the present Gothic church in 1300. In 1588 they built the massive monastery in which there are cloisters, the Salón Real, the Salon Gotico of Jaume I, and the Salón of Ceramics. The architect was one Antón Dexado de la Cossa.
The monastery they built has a fortress-like rectangular stone exterior. It looks to be some six stories high with four imposing towers. The interior is richly appointed everywhere you look. You’d think that given its size they would have run out of decor but in those days gold was flowing into Spain from the “New” World (not new at all to the inhabitants, of course) and there were lots of artisans. The building has served many purposes, one of them was for printing, and there is a museum dedicated to this.
There are two cloisters. In one you see the Gothic Hall and the Printing Museum. There are numerous paintings by José Vergara (1726-1799). In the second cloister there are many paintings as well, and the Salón Real (Royal Hall), the Hall of the Order of the Knights of el Puig along with the Gothic church. The expertly painted dome is behind the main chapel. The materials and workmanship everywhere are stupendous. See https://www.spain.info/en/places-of-interest/royal-monastery-puig-santa-maria
From El Puig’s castle Jaime I launched his assault on Valencia, then held by the Moors, the Arabic conquerors who invaded Spain in 711 CE. The Moors were preparing a surprise attack on the castle in Puig. Legend has it that Jaime was awoken by the beating wings of a bat, allowing him to thwart the enemy. He added the bat with open wings to the coat of arms of Valencia, where it remains to this day. See https://valencia-unravelled.com/history/a-story-of-bats-and-dragons/
Below the monastery there is a bomb shelter, built during the Spanish Civil War. On the hill with the castle there are defensive trenches dug by the Republicans during that period.
The Monastery’s official website is https://www.monasteriodelpuig.org/en/
Nude in Pompeii
Acrylic painting
Acrylic
Music video: Paintings, watercolors and figure drawings, 2024
Some of the art I produced this past year. Most of the watercolors were done aboard Viking. There is limited space and I have to put everything away each time so larger paintings are difficult to mange. It’s perfect for watercolors though!
It was a wonderful year for cruising once the rains let up around June 1. Before that it was rather dreary and the Maas (Meuse in French) was running quite fast as we headed against the current on our way south.
If you have not seen our video about the cruise from Haarlem, near Amsterdam, to the French border, go to https://garyjkirkpatrick.com/at-last-our-narrated-video-from-amsterdam-to-the-france-2024/
Holiday Foods of Rome, and ditching Panettones
Christmas eve dinner here in Rome: I prepared a multiple course meal. Well it was mostly me, as the spousal unit managed to sneak in some very non-Italian smoked herring and salmon. You can get both of these in the stores here these days, but that is no excuse, IMHO.
In Italy the meal is divided into courses: antipasto (before the pasta), Primo piato (first plate, meaning pasta) and Secondo, meaning seafood and meats, Contorni (vegetables) and the Dolci (desserts) and then at the end an espresso (and NOT a cappuccino, let alone one WITH the meal). For primo I made stuffed mushrooms and ricotta fritters (both family recipes), smoked salmon with grilled veg as well as polpette marino (disliked by all but one), these last two begrudgingly admitted to this course in order to humor the unit, and artichokes.
Primos: I made pasta with meatballs and gnochhi in a pistachio pesto sauce. Spaghetti and meatballs served together is an Italian-American thing, as “polpetti” is a meat item and therefore comes as a secondo. This was another compromise, in an effort to serve at least something that the younger non-Italians with us would identify as Italian and in which they might find comfort. “Enough with the surprises, already!” they seemed to be saying, though maybe I was jumping the gun, as to my great delight these are not picky eaters.
Shrimp grilled in butter and lots of garlic, and steamed mussels came next. By this time everyone was full so there were left over shrimp and mussels, and we never even got to the contorni, the vegetable side dish, in one restaurant laughingly translated as “contours.” I’d made cicoria sauteed with garlic, olives and olive oil. We skipped to the dolci, Panettone as well as Vin Santo. Vin Santo, a sweet wine, is a Rome tradition. You dip the crunchy Tozzeti alle Mandorle and chomp away. Tozzeti are called ‘biscotti’ in the US, but ‘biscotti’ is simply the Italian word for ‘biscuit’ or, better yet, ‘cookie.’ There are numerous variations of tozzeti as well as biscotti in general, but mostly just one in the US if you can find them there at all.
White and red wine accompanied the meal. The white in this photo is from the nearby Colli Albani. It is not good enough for a special meal so we opened a better one. The one in the photo and its variations are popular in Rome, sold in bottles or delivered by truck and then pumped via hose into the basement casks of the “enotecas” (wine shops). The shops in turn deliver via spigot to customers who bring their own bottles. They charge about $2.50 a liter. It is often served as the ‘vino della casa’ at restaurants for 6-10 euros a liter (a bottle is .75 liters)
Christmas Day: Lunch with friends, people we have known since our sojourn of 1999-2000. There was prosciutto crudo and Russian salad for antipasto. Prosciutto is the Italian word for ham. It can either be cotto (cooked, that is, regular ham) or crudo, literally ‘raw,’ but actually it is salt cured for long term conservation without refrigeration. In the US people think that ‘prosciutto’ just refers to the crudo version. Russian salad, just their family tradition and not at all common, is diced potatoes, carrots, peas, and hard boiled eggs. The eggs in this case were, thankfully, sliced and laid on top, as I dislike them. A lasagna and then an Italian version of meatloaf came next. It was a fine meal, with long periods of conversation beforehand and between each course as well.
A few days later we went to another friend’s house for coffee. She served up some really good and not too sweet cookies she made using family recipes, as well as turron, marzipan and the ubiquitous panettone. I’d brought a panettone with me, as we had too many even after taking one to the Christmas eve dinner. I was hoping to get rid of it. We’d already had one and ‘basta!’ one was enough. I thought I was out of luck but then our friend announced she would like to take us to see her daughter. I was hoping for another opportunity. Nope. She had the rest of the panettone in tow. Mine remained hidden in my backpack.
Everyone seems to try to pan off their panettones here. I am sure that when we lived here in December of 1999 we brought panettones to friends’ houses that were the very ones they brought to ours.
Some other tidbits about eating in Italy
Bread is a big deal in Italy. You can get it in grocery stores and panificio, a bread shop. Pastries are sold in a pasticceria. Bread and pastries are not normally sold in the same shop. Whether you get bread in a grocery store (supermercato) or a panificio, you chose the bread you want from the clerk, who weighs it and applies a price sticker to the bag.
You will need a good bread knife as few places have a slicer and the breads have mighty fine crusty crusts. In addition these breads are not made with chemicals so they dry out and harden quickly, so it is best not to slice them in advance, although these days you can freeze them and they will be just fine for weeks.
Want some pizza on the run? Get slices at any of the many small shops. You order by size, they weigh and heat it up for you- they seem to love to weigh food here. You can also get veggies in some places. A tavola calda (“hot table”) has pizza (by the weight of course!) and much more, such as roasted chicken, porchetta (pork stuffed with garlic and herbs) and contorni (also by the weight). Beer, wine and soft drinks are served from a refrigerated case (not weighed, thanks goodness). These places have plenty of seating, unlike most by the slice places, and are much less expensive than a restaurant. You order at the counter and pay then and there.
Drawings from Roma
Rome: pen and ink drawings
Religiosity in Italy
Rome is the seat of the approximately 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. Strictly speaking it’s the Vatican City State that occupies this position, but as it is surrounded by the city of Rome, it is understandable why so many meld the two.
The Pope was the head of the Papal States, comprising roughly the center third of Italy, from 756 to 1870. By 1860 most of the Papal States had been conquered by what had become known as the Kingdom of Italy in an effort termed Il Risorgimiento. At that point the Pope only controlled Lazio, the province in which Rome is located, but he lost that in 1870. He then governed only the Vatican City. This arrangement was formalized by the 1929 accord negotiated with Fascist Italy under the pugnacious and blustering Mussolini.
What remains of the Papal power is largely religious. How strong is the Pope’s religious holds over the Italian people? This is not an easy question to answer as there are multiple polls providing varying results. I estimate that roughly 75 percent of Italians are nominally Roman Catholic (RCC), with about half of them observant (attending church on a regular basis), about 10% are atheist or agnostic, 4% are non-Catholic Christians including more than 100,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses and about 50,000 Mormons, 3.5 percent Muslim, with 2 percent who are followers of other religions, including Buddhists, Jews (there are about 40,000), Hindus, Sikhs, etc.
The Pope’s celebrity gives the appearance of importance greater than his actual influence justifies, given half of the country’s Roman Catholics do not regularly participate in Church activities, such as service attendance, despite the threat of eternal damnation for failing to do so. This same group, however, when asked, largely express a belief in the Christian deity. For more information check out Religion in Italy and Pew.
Even in Rome churches are closed for lack of attendance, allowing the Church to better manage its resources. This is in spite of the fact that aside from the four large churches in Rome, the rest of the churches in Italy are maintained by the Italian government. In some places elsewhere in Europe, the buildings are converted to secular use such as art museums or turned into paid visits.
Church maintenance is not the only form of governmental assistance. Without his other assistance the Church would probably collapse. In Italy by law 0.8% of every taxpayer’s annual payment is devoted either to an organized religions which performs social services, or to a state-funded social assistance program. The system is called the otto per mille, meaning eight for every thousand. Over €1 billion a year flows into church coffers from this source. The RCC is not alone: recipients include “…the Waldensian Church, the Assemblies of God, the Seventh Day Adventists, the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, the Lutherans, the Baptists, the Greek Orthodox, along with the Italian Buddhist Union and the Italian Hindu Union.” Tax payers choose the recipients. The Catholic Church remains the most popular choice in 2024, selected by about 70 percent of those who express a preference. The government generally finishes a distant second, followed by other religious groups. See Crux Without this system, the Church would be reliant on Sunday donations, sales of paraphernalia and its businesses.
The Church owns businesses? Indeed, it does. There are Church properties such as private clinics, hotels, bed and breakfast accommodation and guest houses. The income was not taxed provided part of it was occupied by priests or nuns, or had a chapel or prayer room. This created an easy tax loophole. Then the EU took Italy to court. In March of 2023 the Court ordered the Italian government to collect taxes on Church revenue. The tax obligation mounts into the millions. The matter is ongoing but could result in a significant hit on Church coffers. See Reuters
Rome: What’s up with the 2025 Jubilee.
Rome is just a 2 hour flight from Valencia so even Ryan Air’s uncomfortable seats can be manageable. We plunked our two carry-ons in the overheads and sat with a sizable and friendly Bulgarian fellow living in Valencia somehow wedged between us. There went the manageability. He’s with his wife and children, with them to the rear of the plane although at first I thought they were hiding in the jacket he was wearing. They were heading for a short visit to the Eternal City.
We chose this holiday period to visit Rome as it’s a Jubilee year. Jubilees are always preceded by projects that hope to improve Rome’s infrastructure as well maintaining churches, statues and other works of art. It starts with the opening of “holy doors.”
A Jubilee is celebrated by the Roman Catholic Church every 25 years. For the faithful it has spiritual significance, being “A Holy Year of the forgiveness of sin, conversion and joyful celebration.” Catholic Life. In days gone by this pilgrimage came with a promised reduction in the time spent in purgatory but nowadays it is wrapped in aspirational themes.
Wondering, as I was, where the “jubilee” came from? In the Hebrew Bible, aka the Old Testament, it is a year of “emancipation and restoration.” Every 50 years you were to emancipate enslaved Hebrews, restore lands to their former owners, and not cultivate the land. Sounds like a pretty rough year unless you were an an enslaved Hebrew or had lost your land somehow, aside from the travails of the then current owner.
The first of the Roman Catholic Church jubilees occurred in 1300. At first it was celebrated every 100 years, later dropped to 50 and then 25 years, where it remains. But wait! There were ‘special jubilee years in 1983, the 1,950th anniversary of the death of Jesus, and 2015, the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second Vatican Council. There will be another in 2033, 2000 years after the death of Jesus. Nothing like a jubilee to cheer you up, I guess.
This Jubilee has various themes including 1) the world of communication (24 January) , 2) Armed Forces (8 February), 3) artists (16 February), Jubilee of Deacons (21 February), 4) Volunteering (8 March), 5) those who are ill (5 April), 6) adolescents (25 April), 7) People with disabilities (28 April), 8) workers (1 May), 9) Children (24 May), 10) Families, grandparents and elderly people (30 May), 11) sports (14 June), 12) young people (28 July), 9) migrants (5 October), 13) the poor (16 November). The jubilee is a way of highlighting causes deemed worthy of attention.
Planners anticipate that some 35 million plan to make the pilgrimage in 2026, with a million or so choosing this Christmas period. The Jubilee officially started on December 24, 2024 with the opening of the so called “Holy Doors” at St. Peter’s Basilica, and ending on January 6, 2026. There are ‘holy doors’ at all the Vatican churches in Rome and elsewhere. My favorite is the huge door at San Giovane in Laterano, being that taken from the Roman senate at the forum, which is just a short distance away.
Above: Pope Francis at St. Peter’s “Holy Door” on 12/24. He’s nearly 90 and not in the best of health.
There a number of events of note during the Jubilee. See Program Expect Concerts and exhibitions galore (the Vatican’s ‘concerts’ link is not working as of this writing).
There are numerous infrastructure projects in Rome, with a total of 115 planned. The total cost of the projects is estimated at €1.2 trillion, about $1.5 trillion USD. The city expects to recoup a significant portion of the expenditures from the additional anticipated tourist taxes. Among the projects:
An €85 million infrastructure project created a new tunnel along with the pedestrianization of Piazza Pia. It now links Castel S. Angelo to Via della Conciliazione and St Peter’s Square. Trevi Fountain was just reopened to view, sparkling clean and with crowd controls limiting visitors to 400 at a time, according to a local in the know. The main Tram stop for the Vatican, Line 19, now has been cleaned up and beautified with stone pavements. San Giovanni in Laterano is currently enclosed by fencing on the front side. It is due to open on December 28, along with a host of others before year’s end, Mayor Gualtieri running about with sharpened scissors as a host of other projects come to conclusion.
