CASTING A LONG SHADOW {part I}

CASTING A LONG SHADOW

{Part I of II}

Q.   Why do you go to so many churches when you are in Italy?

A.   Because thats where the art is. (maybe)

Duomo and Campanile*

James Aponovich

12" x 15"  ( in progress)

IN SITU  vs.  INSTITUTION

I must confess that my endurance level in most museums is (by professional standards) rather low. That does not make me a bad person or even a bad museum goer, I've been to quite a few. I find that there is a certain disjunct that occurs when a work of art is taken out of its original context and brought to an institution 'in perpetuity', think zoo. I know that it's necessary, but the whole museum-go-round experience often makes my head spin. My brain has a difficult time transitioning the radical shift that occurs when you move from one room ( or culture) to the next (era). It's cultural whiplash.

! DENSE FOGG WARNING !

Beth and I traveled down to 'The People's Republic' of Cambridge last week with our friends Bob and Sylvia, and also Tom and Shannon, who we had not seen since Florence, to check out the newly renovated Fogg Museum at Harvard University. Talk about spinning heads! 

The Italian Architect, Renzo Piano was hired to retrofit the original gem to accommodate two other museums under one glass ceiling ( architecture seems to be a man's world).  As soon as you enter the hermetically sealed chamber of what was the inner courtyard, the air becomes leaden with pedagogical antiquity. You stand in a clinically sterile environment, more in tune with a medical research facility. I say stand because there is no place to sit, unless you sit at the ubiquitous "museum cafe." Vacuous rooms, sharp angles, lots of glass, massive confusion of cultures, no logical flow, and oh, that stuff on the walls, the art? We are talking purity of architecture here folks, not clutter...whew.. my comment on leaving...........

"I need a Martini."

ON THE OTHER HAND

Panicale, from Piazza San Michele Arcangelo

James Aponovich

pencil on paper/ from the sketchbook

Panicale has three piazze, the lower one being the commercial (shops, cafes, etc.), the upper houses the old civic center, and in between is the religious piazza with the church of San Michele Arcangelo dominating. As a Christian church it has occupied this sacred spot for a thousand years and has accordingly undergone many transformations architecturally. By Cathedral  standards, it is 

quite small but put a coin in the box as you enter and the interior lights up to it's current Baroque splendor.

The Adoration of the Shepherds (detail)

Giovanni Battista Caporali ( 1476-1560)

The church also houses works of art, in particular three paintings of note: The Annunciation, by alleged home boy Masolino di Panicale,  The Adoration of the Shepherds, by Caporali, a pupil of  Pietro Perugino, and a small painting , possibly by another of Perugino's students, a boy from Urbino named Raphael. They are all set in their originally intended places (in situ) and it is a delight to be there, without guards, and absorb it all. After about ten minutes the lights go out....time to leave.

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Coming up in Part II

"The Angel Issue"

Finding A Bit Of Tuscany In The Berkshires

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*I have always wanted to do a painting of the Duomo in Florence. This is a fairly detailed drawing on panel that will serve as an underpainting. I will post the progress.

{week 19}

2015 copyright James Aponovich, text and original artwork