Here is a good sample of the ornate if not gaudy buildings sprinkled throughout the city.
Some over the top buildings in St Petersburg Russia
Gary Kirkpatrick
A brief glimpse of St Petersburg
September 8, 2017
On our first full day in St. Petersburg, after an effortless 3.5 hour train ride from Helsinki, we took trolley 3 from the Metro Pushkinskaya area to Lenin Square. This trolley takes you through some of the most attractive areas of St Petersburg. Being on the trolley makes photography difficult as many of the interesting structures go by quickly or are too far away. I got a couple of snaps from my phone, though, to give you some sense of what it’s like. You’ll notice they seem to love golden domes and spires.
Being on the tram did not make people watching difficult at all, although you could be almost anywhere in the US or Europe judging by appearance and dress. I’ve seen several women with striking long black hair, faces as white as snow and dressed for a night on the town. Otherwise it’s very much like what you see in the photo, which I grabbed off the public domain to avoid taking photos of people on the tram.
Other than the domes the architecture is generally pretty similar. The vehicles include many of the same brands you see anywhere in the US or Europe. The city is often described as being the most European of Russia’s cities, entirely justified as far as I can tell so far.
We stopped for lunch at a kind of bakery that made pies- meat, chicken, fish, mushroom, berry. Very good and very Russian.
Language is a barrier for us. In the central part of the city most menus are translated. This was not the case in the pie place but a waitress spoke English fairly well and served up everything with shy charm. On our first night we ate at a posh place recommended as being very traditional by our friendly landlady. The translations were just so so but we did get what we ordered. In my case it was a shrimp dish with dill (everywhere here), parsley and a small portion of some cooked greens that I could not identify but enjoyed greatly. They had Russian wine on the menu, which is almost always sweet, so we ordered some red from Spain. It was decent and not too expensive (in Helsinki there’s nothing less than $35). We saw also found Spanish wines in the grocery stores, not the best Spain has to offer but acceptable.
I am enthused about being here. This is a fabulous city known especially for the Hermitage, one of the world’s best museums= in fact it is a collection of museums in palaces built by a series of czars starting with Peter. More to come!
Robert Mueller — The Look
Robert Mueller is the Special Prosecutor in charge of investigating the Russian interference in the 2016 election. He’s pursuing Flint, Manafort, probably going after Trump and others close to Trump. I ran across the photo I used for this graphite drawing and was intrigued by Mueller’s expression. I would not want to be on the other end of that gaze. It’s analytical, piercing, no hatred but if he figures out you’ve violated the law and he can meet the relevant standards of proof, you are dead meat.
Herculaneum (Ercolano)
Herculaneum (Ercolano in Italian) is an archaeological site on the Italian coast a bit south of Rome. The town, inhabited since the 6th century BCE, was destroyed in 79 CE, by the same eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii. Herculaneum was buried in pyroclastic rock and ash – 15- 20 meters/65 feet – and was struck by extremely high temperatures, killing all the remaining residents instantly. As a result the site offers a far greater insight into the life and death of the residents of populations destroyed by the eruption than Pompeii, and because of its greater state of preservation, is a more interesting place to visit.
Where in Pompeii there were no skeletons, just the area hollowed out in the ash by the skeleton (filled in with plaster of Paris), in Herculaneum they found some 300 intact skeletons. Analysis showed us their occupation, health, diet – we can even distinguish those who ate meat from those who did not. Some had lead poisoning, perhaps from lead pipes Romans sometimes used.
These individuals died from exposure to intense heat, in the range of 500C, close 1,000F. They were in structures built to protect inhabitants from falling debris, as the area was highly prone to earthquakes. Those in the shelter were women and children. Just outside the arched shelters on the beach – which as a result of the eruption is now some 400 meters/yards further west – they found the skeletons of a few men. A boat was nearby, so they were planning an escape.
The archaeologists found food intact, e.g. olives and flour, as well as furniture and fabrics. The relatively light weight of the fallout meant that roofs remain intact, as do other wooden elements such as doors, lintels and trim. They found wooden furniture, sculptures and frescoes with bright colors.
Here’s an excellent BBC video about the site:
Domus Aurea
Domus Aurea
The Domus Aurea – The Golden House – now sits beneath ground level just above the Coliseum on the Via Celio Vibenna side. It was buried after the death of the Emperor who had it built, the infamous and wildly unpopular Nero. In its glory it was a vast entertainment palace surrounded by extensive and gorgeously landscaped grounds. When the underground are was discovered in the early 1500’s by a farmer whose shovel broke through the ceiling of one of the immense galleries, it was explored by Raphael and other artists, who were infatuated by the art they found, and so the Domus came to influene European art for the next 500 years. Thanks to the high tech 3d goggles included with the entrance fee, you get a good sense of its beauty and scale.
The complex extended to the Palatine, Esquiline, Oppian and Caelian hills, although the exact extent of the development is not known. It included a man made lake in what was before a marshy valley, located where the Coliseum is now; the latter was built to replace the lake. There were groves, vineyards, and pastures and a huge bronze of Nero, called Colossus Neronis, last mentioned in the 4th century. It was placed at the end of Via Appia, about a kilometer from the current visitor’s entrance, but later moved to where the Coliseum is now located, and to which it gave its name.
There were some 300 variously designed rooms, none of them sleeping quarters, and neither were there kitchens nor latrines. Nero’s residence remained on the Quirinali Hill. The walls were covered with polished white marble. Openings lit the pools, fountains and the frescoes that fascinated Raphael and his colleagues 15 centuries later. An interesting tidbit- Nero’s chief artist for the complex was called Fabulus ( presumably from Latin fabulosus “celebrated in fable;” also “rich in myths,” from fabula , story or tale) or Famulus. This suggests that our use of ‘fabulous’ was changed from having to do with fables to being wonderful, as a result of the discovery of Domus.
Fabulus and his assistants painted on wet plaster, a method we call ‘fresco,’ meaning ‘fresh, that yields such permanence that we still have good images from 2000+ years ago. The exposure to the cool (you need long sleeves even in summer) damp air of the caverns caused significant deterioration to the frescoes once the dome was opened. The massive numbers of 20th century visitors just about finished them off. Now they severely limit the numbers by allowing only weekend visits, to preserve what is left.
When Domus was rediscovered at the end of the 15th century in the farmer’s field on the Esquiline hill, artists climbed down ropes into the richly frescoed caves- grotta in Italian. They called the frescoes grottesche, from which we get the word ‘grotesque,’ which we now use to describe something ugly but these frescoes were anything but. The impact on the artists was powerful. You can see it best in Raphael’s work in the Vatican, their influence spreading from there.
Some of the wall frescoes:
There is a slide show during the tour and we managed to get a couple of photos from it:
Walking around the interior can be disappointing as it is dark, there are few frescoes to see and they are not in great shape. However the 3d goggle production, in addition to the slide show and the guide’s comments, make the visit one of the best. The goggles show you the chamber you are in as it was at its peak. You look up, right, left or ahead to see the dazzling white walls and their frescoes, statues and other wonderful decorations. The most stunning moment comes when they virtually take you outdoors, through what is now a filled in opening, but what then was a beautiful terrace with a massive view of the artificial lake, the forum and the Capitoline Hill. From the latter a huge temple overlooked the area, as its ruins still do, below the Roman city senate building, from whence you gaze through the ancient columns over the forum.
For those who are fans of antiquity, or who would like to see what the brouhaha is all about, a visit to the Domus Aurea is a must!
Several portraits
Photos from the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Museum, and a bit about the Vatican
Some background
Small (as in Vatican City) can be beautiful and that the Vaticano is. The Vatican Museums house some $15 billion in art, although some of it is way beyond a monetary evaluation. The popes who built the art collection, as well as the Basilica and the rest, were scoundrels who engaged in deception, fornication, thievery, hypocrisy and much more including the sale of what I call ‘get out of purgatory free’ cards: you contributed in some fashion and in exchange the Church guaranteed you would be more leniently treated by the celestial powers that be. But no one can deny that the legacy they left us is a storehouse of treasure that has enriched the world. As much as I detest those people and hate to admit it, but we are indebted to them, yet own allegiance to their means.
Vatican City is a country officially recognized by treaty between the Vatican and the Italian government since 1929 when Mussolini and the Pope came to an agreement. Before the reunification of Italy in 1861, the Pope ruled much of Italy from the Vatican, but the Risorgimento, as it is called in Italian, reduced the papal state to a mere 44 hectares, and it remains the smallest country in the world both in size and population.
You may have heard the term “The Holy See” and wondered about the meaning. The Holy See governs the religious life of the world’s 1 billion Catholics. It is the arm of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) that has diplomatic relations with other countries, not the Vatican City. It’s an odd arrangement, indeed, but there you have it. Another tidbit- the word ‘see’ in “Holy See”comes from the Latin ‘Sede,’ meaning ‘Seat,’ so has nothing to do with seeing and thus not as presumptuous as it seems.
Many people confuse the Museums (there is just one entrance to all of them) with St Peter’s Basilica. Each has its own entrance- if you standing on line in front of St Peter’s you are not going into the Museums. The Museum is not free except for the first Sunday, while the Basilica is always free, though given the costs involved I would not blame the church if it decided to charge. It’s houses amazing art, including Michelangelo’s Pieta, completed when he was just 23 years old.
There is additional background information following the next section.
About the art of the Sistine Chapel
The Sistine Chapel was completed in 1477 by Sixtus IV, for whom the chapel is named. It remains the setting for formal deliberations naming the next pope. Michelangelo, primarily a sculptor, was hired by Julius II to paint the ceiling, which he did from 1508-1512. He started with the center piece, The Creation of Adam shows Yahweh, surrounded by his buddies, injecting life into Adam. Once Michelangelo completed this section he realized the scale was too small, and it would take him too long to finish the immense project. Therefore the remainder of the work is in larger scale. He painted nine scenes in all from Genesis, and also painted the Last Judgment on the sanctuary wall.
Here’s a view of the hall. Photos are not permitted but people manage to take ones anyway. I found this one on the internet, one of the better and more interesting ones. The chapel is hard to photograph well due to its size and the side lighting.
The Creation of Adam, one of the most famous paintings of all time, and the first to be painted in the ceiling project:
This next is one of my favorite paintings in the Chapel. From the far side of the hall his legs appear to be dangling in space.
A little more background
Pope Julius II, aka Giulian della Rovere (1443-1513), aggressively sought to unite Italy, to the point where he led troops in battle on at least two occasions. He engaged in an active building program, most remarkably the rebuilding of St Peter’s Basilica, and invested heavily in the arts, such as the decoration of the ceiling of the Chapel. His uncle, Pope Sixtus IV, had first made him a cardinal, assuming the position his uncle had vacated to become Pope. Although unmarried Giulian fathered Felice della Rovere in 1483.
He began the rebuilding of St Peter’s Basilica in 1506, the same year he conceived of the ceiling for which he would hire Michelangelo. Michelangelo was not interested in the project, saying he was a sculptor not a painter, and besides he was already at work on the Pope’s own tomb. The latter project was set aside and remains uncompleted, housed in St Peter in Chains near the Coliseo and Domus Aurea; more about this in a coming article. The Pope prevailed but went to war for the next two years, delaying the ceiling, during which time Michelangelo continued to work on the tomb, giving us what we have today, the Moses in St Peter in Chains, the center piece of the installation in that church.
Michelangelo wanted no restrictions imposed on the project and he was granted complete control. He eventually painted some 300 figures over the course of the four years it took to complete the ceiling. He worked standing, not laying down as most people believe, using wooden scaffolding. The scaffolding was held by brackets extending from openings at the top of the windows, and allowed for work on half of the ceiling at a time. A lightweight screen below to prevent damage to the artwork and flooring below. The openings were employed for the scaffolding used in the recent restoration, which turned a much darkened ceiling into a brightly colored one we see today.
At first he encountered mold problems in the plaster, into which paint was mixed to produce what we call ‘frescoes,’ coming from the Italian for ‘fresh.’ (I often hear Italians using the word ‘fresh’ for ‘cool’ as in ‘temperature.’) An assistant developed a formula that is mold resistant, after the first applications had to be removed. This formula is still in use.
Fresco painters employ a detailed drawing into which small holes are punched to transfer the design to the plaster. Michelangelo, however, drew directly on the plaster. Each day a new section of plaster was laid, the edges of the previous day scraped off, being too dry. As a result you can still see the daily progress of the work.
The final result is greeted by some five million visitors a year, paying about 15 euros each. The Pope’s grandiose plan appears to have paid off, but I yield nothing to his immorality nor the Church of his time.
Rome at night
These are from the top of Vittorio Emanuele monument in the heart of ancient Rome. The monument is from the late 1800’s, commemorating the unification of Italy, but it is in the heart of things, with the Roman forums to its rear and sides, the historic center where you find the Pantheon, with St Peter’s Basilica in the background– although with my excellent Canon telephoto lens you can get quite close. Photos below the video.
St Agnes at the Track – Piazza Navona, with pen and ink drawings of Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi
Chiesa Sant’Agnese is a small domed church designed by Boromini, a contemporary of Bernini and a rival who never made it to his competitor’s stature. In my book he had nothing to be ashamed of, he just had a competitor that was outstanding and well connected. The work he was assigned was smaller in scale but he did a magnificent job of making the interiors zoom in space.
Chiesa Sant’Agnese is often termed “St. Agnes in Agony’ but this gives an incorrect translation of ‘Agone.” Agone means ‘games’ and also refers to the stadium built by Diocletian starting in 80 AD, with a circle track. So perhaps we should say “St Agnes at the Track,” as irreverent as that may seem.
The church sits on what we now call Piazza Navona, originally called “Circus Agonalis” (circus is a circle, just like Circo Massimo, Circus Maximus). Apparently the name Agonoalis morphed into Navona. Aside from the track shape of the plaza and the buildings facing it, the main feature of the plaza is Bernini’s Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the Four Rivers).
Seated boxer and other drawings from Rome
