I met her in Panama while we were in the Peace Corps and we kept in touch. She is photogenic!
Portrait of Panamanian Woman
Gary Kirkpatrick
Museo Nazional de Arte Clasica Romana (Roman Art) has some mighty fine statues
The Museo Nazional de Arte Clasica Romana is across the street from Termini. It houses a fine collection of Roman era sculptures on the first two floors, very professionally exhibited with excellent English translations. The top floor houses wall paintings from Roman era villas, many of which are in amazing condition. There are also some excellent examples of mosaic art. Here are some examples.
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View of Canal, Giethoorn (acrylics)
Giethoorn is a tiny village in the Nederlands. In town there are canals and walking paths only. The houses have thatched roofs. It’s a magical place.
Museo delle Mura (Museum of the Walls), Rome at St Stephens Gate
The Museo delle Mura (Museum of the Walls), is at St Stephens Gate, at the entry to Appia Antica, the Appian Way as it is known in English. It wasn’t open when we were here last and in 2000 I do not think it even existed. It is small but the small albeit older style exhibits tell you about the history of the Roman walls and their many alterations and reconstructions. And the views are great!
You can walk along the top of the walls, as you can see from here.
Barberini Palace, Caravaggio, Raphaello, chiaroscuro cieling
October 21, 2015
The Barberini Palace, just up the hill from Bernini’s Tritone Fountain, is an immense mansion and the home of the Galeria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, art from about the 15th c -17th century. Here is Caravaggio’s Narisco- Narcissus. Get a load of the reflection!
In the galleries I try to find something I can draw. I try to find something that is interesting and doable in 5-10 minutes and where there is a seat, good lighting, things like that. Sketch of Gerrit van Bronckhorst’s Betsaben al Bagno. I’d never heard of this painter. Seems to have been influenced by Caravaggio, given how he treats the light here.
Back to Caravaggio, here’s another masterpiece hanging in room 20 (in my best Spanish accent, I asked where this room was in Italian and got a reply in Spanish!). It’s so gruesome I nearly walked out of the room!
Salvator Rosa’s “La Poesia” and “La Musica” (17th century) are superb.
And a rarity for the time, a woman painter, and quite a good one! Portrait of a Young Woman Dressed as a Bacchante
Here’s yet another prize- what the Galleria notes as the first female nude:
Jacopo Zucchi “Ritratto di Ciela Farnese”
As for the building, it is a divine palace built by the Barberini family, whose symbol, three bees, appears throughout. It is in wonderful shape. The most magnificent room is on the second floor, immense and nearly empty except for several small sofas in the middle. People lay on them and look at the ceiling, some 20 meters/60 feet above. Here’s why:
You have to go there to appreciate all of these, especially this ceiling though.
All this for 7 euros.
Drawings from the Palau de la Musica set to Oscar Navarro’s “Arce de Noe” (video)
Hagia Sophia (circa 550), one of the world’s greatest buildings
September 20 2015 Istanbul
The Hagia (Holy) Sophia (Wisdom) is a stunning domed building built as a Greek Orthodox cathedral in 537 when Istanbul, then called Constantinople, was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire(also known as the Byzantine Empire). Between 1204 and 1261 it was a Roman Catholic cathedral. Following the conquering of the Empire by the Ottomans in 1453, the Hagia Sofia became a mosque. In 1931 it was closed and then converted into a museum, which it is still. The minarets and round domes give it an Islamic setting, and some of the interior maintains that influence as well. Nonetheless it is an impressive structure, notably the dome, and for 1000 years it was the largest cathedral in the world, replaced in 1520 by the Cathedral in Seville.
Here are some stock photos of the interior. It is way too dark and large for me to get good photos. These are mosaics!
Istanbul Modern is another pleasant surprise
The Istanbul Modern is another pleasant surprise in a city full of them. The artists on exhibit when I visited yesterday were mostly Turkish, some trained here and others in the US and I think one or two in Germany. Most of the work is representational but very creative in a modernist sort of way, as you can from the photos I’ve placed below.
The installations made sense- how unusual- and were interesting as well- also unusual. One was a young man playing make-shift drums, another various people lip synching Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah.’ Behind thick sets of hanging strands of fabric hangs a geographical globe with stars and planets on the walls, while in another section is a political globe. In a third room a face of a woman is projected onto a mannequin. She is singing.
Not so pleasant is the getting there. There are large signs and even an arrow pointing tot the enntrance. The large signs do not point anywhere except for the one with the arrow, which points down a lonely, shabby alley. I walked past it thinking this could not be. But it was.
The location challenge came after I ran across an angry confrontation a few hundred meters from the entrance. There was angry shouting and a man banging hard on the hood of a van. There was pushing and shoving. The police arrived. I heard four bangs, someone with a notepad came running toward me. I then turned around and scooted back a hundred meters, and crossed the street. A security guard told me it was not gun shots, just more banging on the van I suppose, so I went on. Traffic had piled up between me and the scene so I felt reasonably safe.
Here are some of the pieces I found interesting. The first is fabric sewed onto canvas, probably my favorite, which given I am not a fabric art fan in general, is a strong endorsement:
Miniatures and sketches from Istanbul
Istanbul has had its moments of beauty and grandeur. You can relive a bit of it’s heyday in the Hagia Sophia, the Archaeology Musem and the Topkapi Palace.
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The Topkapi Palace, home of the Sultans, his harem and the eunichs since circa 1450:
While we waited to get into one of the rooms at the Palace (we thought it was the main entrance, but we’d already passed it. It was just one of the rooms!) I sketched a section of the lovely old wall.
Turkish woman in bus: