Sculpture and space

I wanted to write this post already some time ago but I've never had a quiet moment to sit myself with a cup of tea and tell you something about the photo that you'll find below. 

It's not a great picture but I like it because it shows one of my favorites squares in Florence, Piazza Santa Trinita. 

It's one of the places in Florence where the space is invaded by the sculpture. 

On the square there is the Santa Trinita church on the left, the Palazzo Spini Feroni and the Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni on the right, the Column of Justice in the middle of the square. Palazzo Spini Feroni was built in the 14th century, Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni in the '20s of 16th cenutry by Baccio d'Agnolo. The column of Justice was donated to Cosimo I de Medici by the pope Pius IV in 1560 and the facade of the church was redesigned 30 years later. In this case the chronological order is quite important. The point is that the statues on the facade were the last element added to the square. If you look closely you see that they unify all space. Saint Alexius from the facade is looking up at the Justice. His glance directed out of the facade makes the space of his niche 'weaker', he seams less attached to the wall. He is also giving meaning to the space, to the distance that separates him from the column and from the figure of Justice. It creates a sort of meaningful tension between them.

It's not the only place in Florence where the statues virtually occupy the space of the city. Saint Thomas is slides out from the niche on the facade of Orsanmichele, Perseus is jealously observed by David and Hercules (there is a great essay on that by John Shearman in his Only Connect if you want to read more...) and probably many others that I still haven't discovered. 

So walk carefully through the city, the statues are watching you!

Piazza Santa Trinita, Firenze, 2011.

The fever of mosaics

Living in Italy as an art historian is extremely difficult. You see to much, you have still so much to visit, to study, to read. You can never cope with the quantity of historical and visual material that attacks you every day. 

The biggest problem is that when you leave Italy and you go somewhere else you find any other place boring: there are no exhibitions of Italian Masters, there are no medieval churches at every corner, and there are no historical cities every 20 km. What you can do with you free time in this kind of places?

So, as I do not know how long my Italian stop will last, I try to visit as much as possible till I am here. When I do not work and when I can put a part my books for a day or two I take a train and I go to see something that I have been only reading about before. 

It was like this with Ravenna. In April last year I went there to see THE mosaics.

I studied them during art history course so I though: OK, it will be nice, but I know what I should expect. 

No bigger mistake! 

Ravenna is a true treasure. Anything you read about the mosaics there can give you even a minimal idea of what you can see when you visit San Vitale, Mausoleo di Galla Placidia, Sant'Apollinare in Classe, Sant'Apollinare Nuovo or the Arian Baptistry. Colours, patterns, light surround you, flood you with their power. 

Maybe it is because of the mosaics that I remember Ravenna as a city full of light. 

Unfortunately I could not take pictures everywhere. In some churches it was to dark to take photos without a tripod and I was not allowed to use one. 

But I did some pictures that I can share with you. 

In Ravenna I had with me my 35mm camera with a black and white film. You will not see the colours of the mosaics but, thanks to the lack of colour on the photos, it is possible to notice other characteristic of mosaics: patterns. Mosaics are like carpets, they extend themselves over every surface: arches, walls, vaults. They spill over without showing any structural difference between elements that they decorate. 

Beside figural representation they are full of floral and geometric ornaments that are repeated and repeated over and over. 

When you look at them longer you risk a vertigo. 

I found this decorative patterns so fascinating also because the pattern attracted also Renaissance public and artists. It is enough to mention the revival of the Cosmatesque floors or the relations between painting and the production of textiles and textiles patterns reproduced on Renaissance paintings. 

Decorative fever, the fever of mosaics:

Mosaics in the Church of San Vitale, Ravenna 2011.

Le Cure

I was always asking myself if my love to graffiti depends on fact that I study monumental frescoes. Maybe yes, maybe no, but the fact is that I love graffiti. All these funny monsters, impossible creatures, funny stories - I like it. That is why I was so happy when I discovered the underground passage in the Cure district in Florence. I was amazed by this incredible net of corridors with walls all covered by funny images and colorful writings. I new that I have to photograph it and I did. Here are some of the results: 

Le Cure, Firenze 2011.

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.