York

Life of a PhD student can be a little bit annoying from time to time. You spend all day in the library, 7 days a week, you read and you write, then you read and you write... you go for a coffee break or for a lunch, but then you go back to the library and you read and you write, you read and you write. And then you meet a friend and he asks you: how is your research going? And you want to kill him because you really can not think any more about your research and your thesis. You are always unsatisfied of your work. What you write never seems perfect to you, you want it better and better, different, more interesting. You are always so slow in writing and they ask you: how many words did you write today? 

When the frustration is to big you have to take a day off, do something different. You do not want to think about reading and writing and reading and writing, about counting words and about your supervisor who tells you that you have to work harder. 

You have to take a break.

After the first stressful period in Durham I took a break, I went with Lorenzo, Giulio and his friend Gabriele to York. I took my camera because for me taking pictures is the best way to relax myself. Guys were looking at it with jealousy. 

We had fun. We were wondering around the city, I took some pictures, guys took pictures of me taking picutres. 

It was on Sunday so we went also for a compulsory Sunday roast. We visited a very interesting exhibition at York Art Gallery: William Etty: Art and Controversy. I think we will never forget it... 

It was a perfect break! On our way back we were almost missing the library, our books and thesis. 

York, 2011.

Ruins

Every revival in visual arts starts with the cult of ruins.
Ruins are physical remains, traces of the past, tangible proofs of others activity. That is why they seam so concrete and real. At the same time every ruin contains a lack. It is never complete, full. Thanks to this lack a ruin is open to one's imagination, interpretation. It invites to write its history, to build a discourse around it.
Ruin has to be completed by somebody's creativity, it has to be actualized by it.
This is also why revivals are never repetition of the past. Renaissance art is different than ancient art, Gothic revival in England did not bring to the Middle Ages once again.

There is something fascinating in a ruin. It is so easy to mythologize it, to describe it attributing  to the past all the qualities that we fell missing in our present reality.

Looking at the English ruins I was thinking about romantic poets, writers and artists who were wondering between those rocks and dreaming about the return to social solidarity of Middle Ages, about the mystery of Gothic cathedrals and the beauty of true faith.

Poetry of a ruin, York 2011.

Stuttgart

During the summer I went to Stuttgart to visit my dear friend Rabea.
Me and Rabea we met in Florence during an internship. It was this kind of friendship that started after the very first talk... I remember that we went for a coffee on one of the very first days at work, we started to chat and it was it, we were there... I just thought: I like her.
Thanks to Rabea I have understood how much Polish and German cultures are similar. I remember when she invited me once for breakfast... I entered her kitchen, I saw all these cheeses, ham, eggs, bread and BUTTER and I thought - HOME! Just tell me, how long could manage to eat brioches and cookies for breakfast every morning?
So during next 4 months we were a strange German-Polish couple between our Italian friends. We were perfectly understanding our jokes (since I live abroad I have understood that sense of humor is totally cultural thing), we had our similar, strange food attitudes and so on.
Unfortunately Rabi left Florence and turned back to Germany. And so I am having my brioches and my cookies for breakfast once again...
I went to visit her in August. I have spent a wonderful weekend between Stuttgart, Tuebingen and Heidelberg.
In Stuttgart I visited the Kunstmuseum with its significant collection of Otto Dix's paintings.
I really liked the square in front of the building also because it is dominated by a Calder's sculpture.

Kunstmuseum, Stuttgart 2011.

Art and the city, Stuttgart 2011.

Street art

Many times walks in Oltrarno can surprise...

Street Art, Firenze 2011.

Lungarni

Siena grew thanks to Via Francigena, the main medieval road that was used by pilgrims on their way to Rome. Pisa had the sea and its port while the heart of Florence was (and still is) the Arno river. It was the Arno that made possible the development of the textile industry and the trade so the river made Florence possible. 

There is something magical in this river. Very often I just go for a walk along the river: from Cascine park, to the Ponte Vecchio, then San Niccolo' and back. The sound of the water settles me down, it makes me happy and calm. Lungarni, the streets along the river, are probably the most beautiful streets in the city.

View on Ponte alla Carraia and Lungarno Corsini, Firenze 2011.

My and my scanner reunited... Blog's revival!

After a long break (too long) I am back!
I am in Warsaw for Christmas and that means that I can finally scan my negatives!
The good news of 2011 is that during the summer I bought myself a wonderful Mamiya RZ67 and now I am scanning all my new photos made with this wonderful camera.
As this year I have lived in and I have visited few different places so... I brought some pictures that I can share with you.
I should start with showing you a place that took my heart and obsessed my brain, that infiltrated itself in my life and do not want to let me go... against any logic and any rational explanation.
It is obviously Florence with its art and its history.
I love to wonder through its streets and read the history from the buildings, bricks, facades of palaces and churches, try to figure out the names of the families whose coats of arms are exposed on them. And I like to picture her.

So today for you Piazza del Limbo with the church of Santi Apostoli:

 Piazza del Limbo, Firenze, 2011.