Gary Kirkpatrick

Artist and travel blogger.

Biergarten in Minden

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Biergarten in Minden
Biergarten in Minden, Germany acrylics on paper 54 x 75 cm/21.25 x 29.5

The design accentuates the flow of the river from left to right. Children bath on the far bank done in impressionist style. The otherwise expressionistic painting has a rich and wide range colors.

Minden is a small town on the junction of the Mittelland Kanal and the Wesser River. The canal crosses the river via a beautiful old aqueduct dating from 1890. It was my wife’s birthday so we chose this place, Biergarten Schiffmuhle Minden, largely because of the lovely view of the river from the outdoor tables. We enjoyed the schnitzel too.

Boat in Kalenburg

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kalenburg barge
pen and in 32 x 41 cm/12.6 x 16.1″

Kalenburg is a tiny village that is split by the canal. It is perhaps the most lovely navigable canal section in the country. Geithoorn is overall more charming but its canals are too small for boats in the size range of our 12 meter boat Viking. I write about it here http://garyjkirkpatrick.com/wandering-about-the-netherland-east-part-2/

Drawings of Caravvagio paintings

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After seeing the Caravaggio and His Times Exhibit in Rome last week I did some rough-ish drawings of some of his paintings in conte crayon. The man certainly could draw very well in the manner of his day. That did not make him unusual as an artist for that time. Rather it was his perfecting the dramatic use of lighting in his paintings.

caravaggio boy bitten
From Boy Bitten by Lizard
lute sm
from The Musicians
caravaggio figures
St Francis of Assissi in Ecstasy
caravaggio bachus
From Bacchus

Caravaggio, Influences and Followers

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Michelangelo Merisi (Michele Angelo Merigi or Amerighi) da Caravaggio 1571 – 1610) is commonly known as Caravaggio. He is the subject of an exhibition at the Capitoline Museum in Rome, Il tempo di Caravaggio (Caravaggio’s Time) that displays items from the collection of Roberto Longhi. Longhi was a Professor of Art History at the University of Bologna and later at the University of Florence. His 1911 dissertation was about Caravaggio. His exhibitions on the painter in the 1950’s spurned interest in Caravaggio, who had been largely forgotten.

Here I will show you examples of the work of Caravaggio and other artists featured in the exposition. Photos were not allowed so I had to use photos I found in the public domain. I did not note the names of the paintings so I used examples that show affinity to Caravaggio.

Otavo Leoni (1578-1630)

portrait of carravaggio Ottavio Leoni
Portrait of Caravaggio by Ottavio Leoni, included here just for curiosity’s sake

Caravaggio is a master of light. He did not invent the approach but he did it with great skill, igniting an international following. Here is a good example of his approach, allowing a good comparison to the paintings of his followers that follow below.

The_Taking_of_Christ-Caravaggio_(c.1602)
The Taking of Christ, Caravaggio 1602, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin.
boy-bitten-by-lizard-carravaggio in longhi collection
Boy Bitten by Lizard, Carravaggio, in the Longhi Collection. This work is far less dramatically lit than the works for which he has become so famous.

Battista de Moro  (1512 – after 1568) is one of few painters, perhaps the only in the exhibition, who came before Caravaggio.

Giovan_battista_del_moro,_ss._nicola,_agostino_e_antonio_abate,_1535
Santa Nicola Agostino and Antonio Abate, 1535

Contemporaries

Bartolomeo Passrotti (1529–1592) worked primarily in his hometown of Bologna.

Bartolomeo_Passarotti_-_Le_pollarole
Bartolomeo Passrotti Le Pollarole

Pier Francisco Mazzucchelli 1573–1626 

Decollazione_del_Battista_-_Morazzone
Beheading of St John the Baptist (Decollazione del Battista), Mazzucchelli

Angelo Caroselli or Carosèlli (1585–1652) 

Angelo_Caroselli_-_Singing_man
Angelo_Caroselli, Singing Man

Domenico Fetti  (c 1589-1623)

Accademia - La Meditazione by Domenico Fetti 1618
La Meditazione, Domenico Fetti 1618

Valentin  de Boulogne (c 1591 – 1632) French

Valentin_de_boulogne,_John_and_Jesus
Valentin de Boulogne, John and Jesus

Gerrit Van Honthorst

Gerard_van_Honthorst_-_Granida_and_Daifilo_-_Google_Art_Project
Gerard van Honthorst, Granida and Daifilo

Gioacchino Assereto (1600-1649)

Gioacchino_Assereto_-_Death_of_Cato_-_Google_Art_Project
Gioacchino Assereto, Death of Cato

Giovanni Andrea de Ferrari (1598–1669)

Semiramide
Ferrari, Semiramis Receiving Word of the Revolt of Babylon

Dirck Van Baburen Dirck Jaspersz. van Baburen (c. 1595 – 21 February 1624), Dutch and one of the group called the Utrecht Caravaggisti. 

De luitspeler
Lute Player, Babur Compare to Caravaggio’s painting of a lute player below
Caravaggio_Lute Player_NY
Lute Player by Caravaggio

Matthias Stom or Matthias Stomer (c. 1600 – c 1653) was Dutch or Flemish.  He was influenced by the Utrecht Caravaggiasts.

Matthias_Stom_-_The_death_of_Brutus
Matthias Stom, “The Death of Brutus”

From  https://www.lavocedinewyork.com/en/arts/2020/09/17/roberto-longhi-foundation-exhibits-its-caravaggios-at-the-capitoline-museums/

 

...  The Times of Caravaggio opens with four small panels by Venetian Lorenzo Lotto who inspired Caravaggio’s interest in bright light, and Bolognese Bartolomeo Passarotti’s canvas of a market scene, which possibly triggered his obsession for still lifes and portraits of “low-class” people. Of particular interest in this first of five rooms is Longhi’s canvas, A Boy Peeling Fruit. There are three other copies of this early work all dating to 1592-93, all believed by many scholars including Longhi, who included it in the 1951 exhibition, to be Caravaggio’s earliest work painted upon his arrival in Rome. …Longhi also suggested that Caravaggio borrowed the motif of the bitten finger from a Boy Bitten by a Crab, a drawing by a prominent Renaissance artist Sofonisba Anuissola.  As for the model, some scholars suggest Mario Minniti, Caravaggio’s companion and the model for several other Caravaggio paintings.  Others believe it is a disguised self-portrait.

Palazzo Venezia over centuries

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Palazzo Venezia faces Piazza Venezia and the monument to Vittorio Emanuele, the king appointed at the time of the unification of Italy in 1861.  It’s a huge building and not much to look at from the outside, and is surrounded by heavily trafficked streets and a huge number of bus stops.  It is now a museum.   It’s 162 steps up to the museum level, itself containing huge chambers, two of which measured 33 meters or about 100 feet in length.  There is an elevator for those unable or unwilling to make the climb.

We probably had the place to ourselves, except for the guy I thought at first was a security guard who wanted to tell us something about the palace.  But then he did not leave and provided running commentary.

Palazzo Venizia (1455-67) was built for the Venetian cardinal Pietro Barbo, later called Pope Paul II.  He continued to reside in it after election to the papacy.  They used travertine from the Coliseo (Coliseum)  and the Teatro de Marcellus.  Pope Pius IV gave the building to the Republic of Venice, thus giving the palace its name (Venezia is Venice in Italian).   In 1797 it became the embassy of Austria to the Holy See.  In 1929 Mussolini chose it as his headquarters and it is from the huge room decorated with chiaroscuro columns that he gave the speech from the tiny balcony seen in newsreels in which his smug expression and macho strutting are clearly visible. 

  

Mussolini address the crowd from the small balcony holding 1 or 2 people at a time
Palazzo Venezia

There is a library of archaeology and the history of art used by scholars from around the world.

Aside from large chambers of state and the tranquil papal garden, the museum houses terracotta sculptures by Bernini, a huge ceramics collection gifted to Mussolini, numerous portraits and other paintings, including one that I believe to be a good example of the style later perfected by Caravaggio. 

Due Amici, Girogio Castelfranco circa 1502
Cleopatra, Carlo Maratta, also using the light to focus the viewer’s attention

Rome: It’s Only Us

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Oct 27 2020

Rome is not a sea of tranquility but this gets close. Tourists are home sheltering in place or restricting their visits to more nearby locations. Many locals work from home or are out of work altogether, reducing the normally intense traffic.

st peters
The plaza in front of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome Oct 27 2020

We chose this time to come to get to enjoy Rome without the crowds of tourists, and when the streets are not quite so full of Romans in their cars and on the buses. Italians are normally friendly. They seem even more so now, not so pressured by crowds and traffic.

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Looking towards the Gianolo, sometimes called Rome’s 8th hill

We breezed through security. There were just three people with us.

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Berini’s Baldachino from the front entrance

St Peter’s never seemed so big. I had a relaxed 15 minutes in front of the Pieta- “relaxed” and “Pieta” have never before been in the same sentence except. Except now. It’s great for us. The empty shops and restaurants tell the opposite story.

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There’s a stunningly decorated side chapel with gilded angels by Bernini which is reserved for prayer. We have never gone in as we are not religious but it was empty and there was no guard although there is usually one. What a treat! I do not know who did the figures at the join of the walls and the ceiling, but they are fantastic!

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Gilded Angels by Bernini
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Masks are everywhere, people keep their distance, the businesses have hand sanitizer, even the Metro entrances.   They are trying.  

  

atac bus color
On The Bus, room to breathe

A masked Mario at the wheel

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As we prepared to leave for Rome, their pandemic numbers spiked, the country closed down bars and restaurants after 6 p.m., there were clashes between the police and those protesting the new restrictions. On the plus side the Ryan Air flight from Valencia landed 15 minutes early. And we know our way around.

Ciampino Airport is about 15 kilometers/9 miles from Termini, Rome’s central train station from whence you can get just about any where in Rome. You can get a bus from the airport that takes you directly to Termini. It had already left when we arrived and another was not due for over an hour, as they have reduced their frequency significantly given reduced demand. We knew what to do – get a local bus ticket which we needed to do anyway in order to get around town. Then you can take the public bus to the metro and get to Termini that way. Since public transport passes are available in weekly form, and we knew that, we ordered that at the window, which we got to after explaining to the policeman at the door why we wanted in. Apparently you now need good cause to enter. It helps to speak a least a bit of Italian.

There are two buses that take you to the metro, one takes you to the Metro A at Anagnina and the other to Laurentine on Metro B. The Laurentine was just leaving as we arrived. We waved him down. He let us in as he’d only moved a meter or two. We knew we could go to either of the metro stations. Off we went into the dark narrow streets of the countryside between Rome and Ciampino, not just an airport but a city on Rome’s southwest side.

The driver wasted no time imitating Mario Andretti, the famous Italian American race car driver who dominated the circuits over three decades. We lurched around the curves, then forward and back when he tromped on the brakes. Windows and doors rattled on the rough rode, a cacophony making conversation nearly impossible. He screeched to a stop in the middle of nowhere to pick up a lonely passenger. As we proceeded in the blackness I tried to put in our route to our apartment near the Borghese Gallery. It was quite a challenge just to hold onto the phone. I got far enough along with the task to see where we had to get off in order to ride the metro to Termini.

It was a piece of cake from then on. We even knew to take a bus from Termini to get to the flat, although our host recommended that we take a taxi or walk. We ended up with a 5 minute walk versus 20 from Termini. This gave us time to shop for dinner.

We would have to cook for ourselves without any restaurants to choose from, as we could not be sure if any offered takeout. We shopped at the Coop on the way, just two minutes from our destination. The procercy stores sell great bread, quite inexpensive and about as good as what you can get in a bakery. You get it at the meat/cheese/deli counter that almost all of them have. There are fresh pasta shops but in the grocery stores you get just a few choices. There are lots of choices for sauces in the pesto category, as tomato sauces are not the be all they are in the US. Red pepper sauces has became one of my favorites after stints in Italy.

As we were nearly ready to check out, we realized we’d forgotten garlic. I walked through the checkout line to go more directly to the vegetable section. Surprisingly there was no garlic. Or maybe not a surprise. They use it a lot. So I returned to the register where Peggy was placing items on the belt, and started messing with the bag. The woman at the register gave me such a look, like who am I to steal this bag. I laughed and told her, “Siamo insieme.” She laughed and did the rest of her job speaking English. It was a friendly “goodbye and thank you for coming.”

At our digs it was all in Italian. Anyone could figure their way through it though.

Tomorrow another visit to St Peter’s, from whence the Pope announced his support for same sex civil unions. It’s an improvement, and I could care less about what he thinks the difference is between so called sacred ceremonies and civil arrangements. Legally they are the same. Take the same ingredients and just add woo and you have a church wedding.

And that’s what it was like on our fist day in the land of Bunga Bunga – yes, Berlusconi is still holding an elected position, escaping prosecution still, as under Italian law elected officials are immune.