Clear Print

Some people enjoy reading inscriptions on ancient stones.

Photography can help by making script more legible.

Art as Consolation

We went to Dublin Castle recently to enjoy the Georgian archicture and the plasterwork and stone heads inside and out of the Chapel Royal.

This has set me back rummaging through photos taken in Verona in May.


The marble pieces in the Archaelogical Museum were a highlight of a very interesing visit.
A place not to be missed.

The Giusti Gardens, an Update

I'm reposting a piece about the Giusti Gardens in Verona because it is worth mentioning why I found the visit so disorientating.

The statues are arranged in concentric circles, which took some time to work out and this may account for why I felt so unsettled and tired there. The solution was to sit on the rim of the central fountain until I could get my bearings and finally climb up to the viewing point above, which has one of the most spectacular views over this lovely city.

It's worth noting that the famous cypress trees are relatively new, as they were planted in 1946 to replace those destroyed by war. This last piece of information thanks to the link here: "www.comune.verona.it/veronaforkids/eng/pagFiume.htm" And here's the original piece, which was inspired by how, in general, sculpture may be the Cinderella of the blogging world.

There is one subject that could be better represented on the Internet... Sculpture.

Statues are everywhere nowadays and they make large and obvious subjects for anybody who has little patience with nature's buzzing and flapping or the impossibility of capturing a "true portrait" of people one meets.

I am always aware of the incredible effort taken to make an object in resistant materials that is meant to last for a very long time, if not forever.

The statues in the Giusti Garden in Verona disport themselves so strangely through the formal hedging that it took several hours before I could comfortably capture them. Whoever placed them where they are must have had a sense of humour, as they don't conform to what the ordinary viewer is trained to expect.

They wanted to confuse the new visitor?
Or perhaps they did not have a classical sense of proportion?

The reason is probably lost in the mists of time.

Statuesque

There is one subject that could be better represented on the Internet... Sculpture.

Statues are everywhere nowadays and they make large and obvious subjects for anybody who has little patience with nature's buzzing and flapping or the impossibility of capturing a "true portrait" of people one meets.

I am always aware of the incredible effort taken to make an object in resistant materials that is meant to last for a very long time, if not forever.

The statues in the Giusti Garden in Verona disport themselves so strangely through the formal hedging that it took several hours before I could comfortably capture them. Whoever placed them where they are must have had a sense of humour, as they don't conform to what the ordinary viewer is trained to expect.

They wanted to confuse the new visitor?
Or perhaps they did not have a classical sense of proportion?

The reason is probably lost in the mists of time.

Pillar Talk

There is a frisson underlying life in Venice, especially in relation to the two famous pillars on Saint Mark's Square.

With images representing Saint Mark and Saint Teodor of Amasea atop these imposing poles, they are a reminder that the square was, up to the 18th Century, a place of execution.

The religious art of Venice, after several days, began to make me wonder (and not for the first time), how such a terrifying fantasy life could have been transported so readily to Celtic and Nordic countries where nature, not artifice, is so much more in harmony with the tastes of the people.

The glorious Church of Saint Anastasia in Verona gave me my breath back after the Baroque splendors of Venice. The soaring pillars are decorated with intricate tendrils and flowers.

I was in Heaven there.

All a Glitter...

Italian art is often gilt and glitz.

Very pleasing indeed...

OMG!

It turns out that a trip to Italy with five days in Venice and four in Verona was just the ticket to cheer us up for a while away from an increasingly chilly Dublin.

"17 degrees at home", the young lady in the check-in queue at Marco Polo airport said. A shiver went through my marrow and a sudden desire to stay in the sunny south was almost overpowering. However, back over the Alps we came and yesterday a rattling good thunder storm, with a noisy fall of large, slow to melt hailstones consolidated our return to "Winterland".

I have a vast body of beautiful photos to prove that our visit to the land of Tintoretto was really worth getting up far too early for (twice), being reminded of how I hate crucifiction (much energy was spent finding agreeable normal looking art works to admire and avoiding those most admired by people like Henry James and Ruskin), keeping ahead of the Pope's possee as he took over Saint Mark's Square for an afternoon during the first visit by a Pontiff for 25 years and eating myself into a contented fudged state of mind that has helped to fight off a sore throat and racking cough that may be due to the swampish waters of the lagoon or to the fact that, in typical Norther European fashion, I persisted in showering on our last morning in Venice, even though the people running the pleasant monastery where we stayed had forgotten... probably overwhelmed by spiritual zeal caused by proximity to His Holiness... to turn on the hot water.

However, I cannot complain. Italy will, from now on be a favoured holiday destination and "tant pis pour la France", an increasingly inward-looking whingy place that is insisting on Ireland being screwed to the wall in order to repay debts that nobody actually believes should exist.

From now on, no French wines in this neck of the woods. Italy has such a warmer, more hearty vignoble. And much as I admire French writers, no more book buying that would only encourage them to think that they can treat old allies with disrespect. One of my grandparents spent several years in the trenches in the Great War. He would be puzzled, I guess, by the small minded little nation that has evolved over time to be a place that I would actually happily pay money not to have to visit.

The Hexagone has closed its borders to refugees from Libya. It won't notice the absence of one litte housewife whose goodwill they have lost... though presumably if they stop veering politically to the right, things may, in time, change and look up again.

I had a lovely chat with a kind French family on holiday from the Auvergne and it does not come easily to write what I have put down above. However, French is spoken daily by hordes of visitors to Venice and I can always visit the Alliance Francaise in Italy in future.

I'm already planning another trip to Venice, a dream world without cars...