Michelangelo's Pieta

In a museum next to the Duomo in Florence, is Michelangelo's unfinished pieta. Above is my sketch of it. I only included the arm of the figure on the left, mostly out of laziness, but also because it is not the most interesting figure anyways.

The pose of Jesus is just perfect, lots of pathos, and a feeling of fate (as in somethings must be). I always liked the main figure behind Jesus, the man in the cloak holding Jesus in a way that he is almost presenting the body of Christ to us the viewers. I've always assumed the figure is Michelangelo himself, presenting the body of Christ, or his sculpture of Jesus to us the viewer. Apparently, the pieta was meant for Michelangelo's grave. Now the idea of the cloaked figure being Michelangelo himself makes even more sense.

Anyways, regardless of the identity of the cloaked figure the main achievement is really the body of Christ. Here, although still muscular, the Michelangelo makes the body of Christ seem weak and beaten by lengthening the limbs, and by the wonderfully limp/languid/resigned pose. The way the other figures support the body of Christ is also important, as they do it with such grace and care, yet the physical weight of the figure is also apparent. The slumping body being laid down as gently as possible, but the weight of the dead body pulls everything down. Man, this sculpture is really the finest poetry.

BTW: christ doesn't have a left leg in Michelangelo's sculpture. Really it just isn't there - this is after all an unfinished sculpture! It doesn't really seem to matter though, does it? Maybe the leg ruined the composition, and that's why Michelangelo quit the sculpture ('cause really you can't have Christ with a missing leg). Also, a beautiful detail is how christ holds the (in my drawing) missing figure on his right holding up his leg - he holds his arm so lovingly around her shoulder, but he's dead, right! It's such a beautiful contradictory gesture. His love extends past his death - that's the death of christ in a nutshell isn't it? I'm telling you this sculpture is sooooooo crazy good.

Two

MATURE :: IMMATURE

Sabine in Florence

There's Sabine walking down the lane toward the two cypress under a blue sky. Beautiful! Sabine also got to enjoy wearing a dress during the hot weather. Looking very cool with her shades next to a statue in the Boboli gardens. Don't ask what is going on with the statue above, looks like a May-September romance. Sweet.

UP!

In florence you are often looking up. Up at a blue sky, up at a church tower, and almost always up at a painted ceiling. Sabine is showing the correct pose for looking up, not looking directly over your head, but a little nebenbei, otherwise you get dizzy and tip over ;) Really, there was so many ceiling paintings, and a total lack of any kind of furniture in most of the rooms we visited, I began to imagine that back in the day the denizins of Florence lay around on pillows staring up at their ceilings. It would be great to look at the ceiling paintings this way, more dreamy, like laying in the grass watching the clouds roll by. More seriously, it is a totally different thing to look at a painting hanging on the wall. Is there a difference between reading a book on your back, or sitting upright? I think, actually, yes. They should throw around a couple of those really super sized pillows in the florentine palaces for the viewers to enjoy the ceilings properly.

BTW: a lot of the paintings in the palaces were painted on wooden planks then installed on the ceiling. You would think ceiling paintings are always frescos. But installing wooden painted planks on the ceiling makes a lot of sense - it is no fun painting on your back, painting dripping down your arm or in your face. And then you need scaffolding, and you can't really step back from your painting to get a different perspective on it.....

MEAT!!!

Ahh, a meat store! Look at all those prosciutto legs hanging from the ceiling! I think this man is in heaven. They cut the prosciutto by hand here, which means kind of thick and uneven slices, not the typical machine cut prosciutto I'm used to buying at the supermarkt. But then thicker = more meat per mouthful! I also had carpaccio, which I think is meat from lung. Sounds Bleahhhh, but taste good. No, after a quick google, carpaccio is simply raw meat - maybe it was lung maybe it wasn't. Anyways the meat looks nice too, a deep wine like red. The meat is a little dry. But in this case, since the meat is cut pretty THIN, it melts on your tongue. Mmmmm.

Perseus and the head of Medusa

Without wading too deep into greek mythology........ here is a bronze statue, by Cellini (ca. 1550) of Perseus who cut the head off Medusa. Perseus was given winged sandals from the god Hermes, a sword from Zeus, a invisible cloak from Hades, a mirrored shield (to be able to look at the Medusa) from Athena, and finally and most practically a bag from Hesperides for Medusa's head. Thus fully outfitted he went to cut the head off Medusa. A gross detail to the sculpture is the bloody stump of Medusa's head. What looks like the shredded muscle of the cut off neck is upon closer inspection, writhing snakes. This refers to the fact that two creatures (Pegasus and Chrysaor) sprang from Medusa's severed neck.

Another cool detail to the sculpture: when looking at the back of Perseus's helmeted head you can see the image of the sculptor's face! The banding of the helmet forms the nose and eyebrows of the face, and Perseus's hair becomes the sculptor's beard. This type of hidden image is somewhat typical for renaissance art, and in painting the most extreme example of this trickery can be seen in the "fruit face" paintings from Giuseppe Arcimboldo.

Firenze!!!!!

Sabine and I took a much overdue 'sans-kids' vacation to Florence (thanks Oma and Opa for watching the kids). What a city! Don't know where to begin. How about a picture of the main Doma (taken from inside the tower), and two pictures from our hotel/B&B. We stayed outside of the city center, a 10 minute bus ride away, another 10 minute walk up a hill. The hotel had a splendid view over the country side, with a perfectly situated pool! The hotel itself was a converted old smallish stone castle, with beautiful relaxing gardens all around it. We highly recommend it: I Parigi Corbinelli.

The walk up the hill to the hotel was hot at times, but let us soak in the country side. One evening after dark the whole way up the hill fire flies were floating about. We even caught one. They are really strange because they make no noise, fly slowly enough that you can catch them, and the only thing you ever see is their bright flashing glow - we never saw the actual bug! It's a little like catching pure light! Very magical, and it was the first time Sabine and I had ever seen fire flies. If it hadn't been for learning about fire flies from reading children's books, I think we would have been pretty spooked. Dancing specks of light as if from the spirit world.

Who's the Monkey?

Went to the Albertina today, to see works from the 'Der Blaue Reiter'. Link. Beautiful stuff from Kandinsky, and Franz Marc. Their work is almost 100 years old now, but it is still so fresh, and inventive. Kandinsky's abstractions are so wonderful - I have to try some myself!

Mr. Pascal ( pictured above) is playing the monkey in front of some permanent sculptures at the Albertina. I think he would gladly switch places with the monkeys instead tagging along through the museum!

Spring Rain. Bus Stop.

A light spring rain. Waiting for the bus. Bus was 12 minutes late, and Pascal had plenty of time to amuse himself, by watching the bubbles floating down the gutter, or the cars spraying the curb as they whizzed by.

Slacklining is Kool!

Got a slackline for Anika's birthday. Really it's for the whole family. But then Ani is the best so far - she's up to an unassisted mount and 4 steps. But Papa's close on her tail ;) The first day we took the slackline up to the park next to the Haus des Meeres. The next day we went to Prater Park.

Bunny and Cross

Here's the beaded wooden egg, mentioned below, with the bunny on the one side, and the cross on the other.

Wise Goat

Goats appear wise. It's the beard, the rectangular pupils, and the steady gaze. This one has been thinking inside his glass box for decades.

Vienna Marathon - Haile Gebrselassie

The marathon is here! They ran right past our apartment. They were handing out !Go Haile! placards. Early in the morning the race people were setting up a water station below our apartment. We went out before the first runner went by, so we were sure to catch Haile Gebrselassie. The first runners were running FAST! They mostly keep up this pace the whole length of the marathon - amazing!

About half way through the race the water station - which had 1000's of water glasses set up -was empty. The workers could barely pour water fast enough to keep up with the demand. They resorted to pouring the water first into a tub, then dunking the individual plastic cups in the tub to fill them up. Also the street was covered in empty plastic cups, and with the runners stepping on them all it filled the street with a sound not unlike a running creek. Further up the street, the sound was just of the runner's feet striking the pavement. This sounded like a soft rain - mellow.

Here is Haile coming!

Here is Haile going (our apartment front door is just over his right shoulder).

Easter Shopping

Went to the Osternmarkt Saturday. Even had some warm sunny weather. There was A Huge display of painted eggs, and they even had plain eggs already hollowed out, ready for painting! Also got a small wooden egg, with a bead mosaic of a bunny on one side, and a cross on the other - very nicely done. But what exactly does it mean to have a cute bunny on one side and a bloody cross on the other? Weird opposition.

more eggs

Schloss Hof on a Spring Day

Welcome Spring!!!!

Went to Schloss Hof in the countryside about 45 minutes from Wien near the border with Slovakia. A beautiful day, sunny, warm, blue skies. The Schloss was built by Prince Eugen, a successful prince, and military leader. Some say he was gay, and judging from his flamboyant hairdo it's not difficult to imagine. Anyways the Schloss is beautiful, and amazingly understated (see the simplicity of the fountain). The Schloss was restored in the early 2000's so maybe that adds to the spanking new clean overall look to the place.

A little irony. The palace garden and fountains unfolds downhill along a long formal rectangle. The view is of the flat farmlands below and in the distance the mountains along the Donau, and the city of Bratislava in the former Czechoslovakia. We visited the city before, and it does have it's sections of old charm, but the place is dominated by super ugly, huge concrete communistic mass housing. These arrogant giant concrete buildings now dominate the distant view from Schloss Hof. Certainly a weird feeling to look at all that communistic arrogance from the princely arrogance of Schloss Hof. At least the Schloss is beautiful, can't say that at all about the communist people's palace in Bratislava.

Another Bratislava connection: storks nesting atop a chimney at Schloss Hof. There is a white stork sanctuary in Bratislava.

Spring into the Woods

The last week's weather was great, but the rain was to return this weekend. Not fair! So, to beat the rain, we went early Saturday into the woods, or really a marshland, near the Donau. Sabine works in the area, and takes her jogs through these woods - she wanted to show us the snowbells carpeting the forest floor (no exaggeration!!), and the fresh buds on every branch.

We got "lost" in the woods:

Anika has learned to love the flavor of "bear lauch" a wide edible leaf that has a remarkable garlic taste. She can eat enough to really, literally stnik up the entire car with her breathing. Anyways, we found Anika sitting in a patch of "bear lauch" munching away....

Pascal is always the soldier, or guard, or karate master. Give him a stick, and..... I got him to pose in front of a thickly barked old tree. I guess he is guarding the tree itself - someone should. He looks a little confused in the picture, but he quickly came back to his senses.

Mama and Papa also got to play in the trees. Watch out for the old rotten branches, crack, slip.... awwwww!!!

Brothers and Sisters

Brothers and sisters, sometimes they really do love each other - and I even have proof. No doubt Anika and Pascal love each other, but they sure know how to hide it most of the time. Between those two a fight can start at any moment for practically any reason. It makes you wonder sometimes how they will ever get along in any kind of civilized way, but then you see, they do actually love each other.

I recorded the proof, above on a short hike to a castle just outside of Wien. Really there are castles on every third hill top here. From the castle we had a nice view of flatlands stretching out to the snowy mountains. And, of course, on the next hill just across the little valley stood another castle. I'm pretty sure the two castles are so close across the valley that they could've traded cannon shots at each other's castle, back in the day.

Anika with her T.V. pal. See even Spongebob gets out and about the town once in a while!

Cool, Eh!

Pascal insisted on wearing his spiderman sunglasses last Sunday. Wasn't even a little bit sunny. I couldn't resist snapping a picture of him next to the graffited stairs near our apartment. He gave me the Cool, serious look.

Pascal, just couldn't keep his cool together and had to smile. Thank goodness! Don't worry you're still the coolest guy in our family, Pascal!

Pelican, my favorite bird

61x46cm, oil on board

Finished my Pelican. It was hard to make up the pose..... the stuffed bird had a weird pose I couldn't use for the painting. I tried to make the pose as realistic as possible and payed attention to the bird's anatomy - there happened to be a pelican skeleton, where I could much better see how the wings work. Wings are kind of weird because they are arms and hands, although you don't see that because of the feathers. So a bird has a shoulder blade - kind of like us - and an elbow - which I think bends backwards in comparison to use - and a hand with fingers, or more like just fingers and no real hand, as in a palm. The "fingers" are the tips of the wings and birds use them much like we would point with a long stick attached to our finger. You can actually see this "pointing" action in pictures of eagles or hawks in flight. The tip feathers look like fingers, because the bird can point them like fingers, but really the feathers are just feathers and the pointing finger is the "leading edge" part of the wing.

Anyways something bad is happening in the background of my Pelican picture. Where he is standing things don't look so bad. There is a coin at the Pelican's feet, and in the context of the Pelican it is just another thing, like a rock or shell, but to us it has meaning ($$$$) and often leads to the bad things in the background.

Why is the Pelican my favorite bird? Back in California when I went surfing I would often see these guys flying about. They are amazingly graceful in the air. They like to skim the water really low maybe 10 inches above the surface. And they just glide, across the water, between the swell lines, hardly a wing flapped - beautiful, astonishing!