Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Controversial Christmas Tree in Venice, 2020 - Digital vs. Real - Why not both?

Venice Gold Plessi Digital Christmas Tree 2020 photo by Cat Bauer
Digital Christmas (2020) by Fabrizio Plessi - Photo: Cat Bauer

(Venice, Italy) There is a debate in Venice about whether or not you like the glowing gold Digital Christmas installation by the international artist Fabrizio Plessi that is currently shimmering in Piazzetta San Marco, made up of more than 80 panels of flowing light. Each river of gold flows in a different direction, symbolically uniting earth, water and sky. 
 
The 80-year-old Plessi was inspired by his deep love of Venice and the gold mosaics that enrich St. Mark's Basilica, which complement his Golden Age waterfalls currently cascading in the windows of the Correr Museum in the heart of Piazza San Marco. (For those not familiar with the geography, the Correr Museum and St. Mark's Basilica bookend Piazza San Marco, so the golden colors perform a celestial dance that arches across the square.) An entire Golden Age installation was also supposed to open last May at Ca' Pesaro, Venice's International Gallery of Modern Art to celebrate Fabrizio Plessi's 80th year, but the global pandemic put a halt to that.
 
Digital Christmas was intended to be a beacon of hope, light and unity but was met with controversy -- some members of the public understandably would have preferred a giant Rockefeller Center-style traditional tree, an old-fashioned Christmas after a year of being stuck at home, bleary from being confined to computer screens.

Fabrizio Plessi - The Golden Age at Correr Museum in September - Photo: Cat Bauer
 
Long before every person on the planet was running around with a smartphone, Plessi worked with electronic media -- as far back as 1968 his artistic focus was on water, which he expressed in film, video installations and performances. The very first time electronic media was shown at a film festival was Plessi's Underwater presented at the Venice Film Festival in 1981. Throughout his long career he has exhibited works throughout the world with titles such as Waterfire, Digital Fall, Digital Islands, Water Fall II, Water Windows, Liquid Labyrinth, Liquid Life, Liquid Light, Splash -- creating liquid electronic images is what Plessi does, so it should be no surprise that he would create Digital Christmas. Like many artists, the 80-year-old Plessi is ahead of his time.

Venice Christmas Tree 2017 - Photo: Cat Bauer
 
Reality is that Venice has not had a real Christmas tree since 2016. I remember in 2017 when the first all-electric light tree arrived in the Piazzetta and immediately blew out all the lights in Piazza San Marco. Many people thought that it was instant karma for inflicting an unnatural tree upon the town.
 
Venice Christmas Tree 2018 - Photo: Cat Bauer
 
In 2018 it was worse: a bunch of blue and white electric light spheres in the shape of a tree that had zero Christmas spirit. The soulless blue tree was not embraced by the public.
 
Venice Christmas Tree 2019 - Photo: Cat Bauer
 
In 2019 it was another electric tree, but this time it was forgivable because Venice had just recovered from the November 12th flood, followed by day upon day of acqua alta. Yet Piazza San Marco had miraculously managed to pull itself together by November 29th with live Christmas carols by Vocal Skyline, a gospel choir that filled the square with hope, humanity and good cheer. Just getting a Christmas tree up last year under extreme circumstances was a sign that Venice could hitch up her skirts and clamber back to her feet.

Venice Gold Plessi Digital Christmas Tree 2020 photo by Cat Bauer
Digital Christmas by Fabrizio Plessi - Photo: Cat Bauer
 
Last week I took an informal survey of the few people who were gathered at the digital tree, taking photos. Everyone was a local because there is basically no one else in Venice right now, and the result was about 20% for and 80% against. One woman told me that Venice is a grande dame, and deserves a grand tree befitting her dignity. A couple from Murano said they liked the installation, but not in Piazza San Marco, and not as the official Christmas tree. The husband said, "We have a great Christmas tree on Murano," and showed me the colorful glass Christmas tree created by the master glass maker Simone Cenedese. Three teen-age girls were taking selfies, and said they did not like it at all and wanted a real tree, basta.  
 
Then I spoke to two little children and asked them if they liked the tree. The boy, who was five-years-old shouted, "Molllllttttooo!!!" which means "very much," but sounded like, "I love it!!!!" and the girl, who was four, sweetly concurred. They seemed fascinated by the cascading gold, each panel traveling in a different direction. An older couple overheard the conversation and said it was because the children were used to digital things, and we are not, which made me wonder if the lockdown has altered their perspective, and now the digital world seems more real to children than the natural world...
 
Real Venice Christmas tree 2016, Piazzetta dei Leoncini - Photo: Cat Bauer

Personally, I think Digital Christmas is inspiring, and thought it was beautiful and compelling to watch. To me, the solution would have been to call it an art installation, not a Christmas tree. Then, in addition, a real Christmas tree could have been brought into Piazzetta dei Leoncini, like the ones we used to have, and everyone in Venice could have been invited -- the artisans, the hotels, the shops, the citizens, the children, the churches, the museums, whoever felt like it -- to create a decoration and drop it off at a designated place so that someone official could hang the ornaments on the tree each day, all the way up to Christmas Eve. 
 
It would have been a lovely group project while everyone is stuck at home, and the children could experience the thrill of seeing their creations on display. Then everyone could gather in Piazza San Marco each evening to see which new ornaments had arrived on the real Christmas tree, with Plessi's Digital Christmas in the Piazzetta and his The Golden Age cascading in the windows of the Correr, the natural world and the digital world uniting to illuminate the entire square.

Maybe next year in 2021, for Venice’s 1600th birthday...

Ciao from Venezia,
Cat Bauer

Tuesday, December 8, 2020

Remembering John Lennon on the 40th Anniversary of his Death

The Imagine Circle in Strawberry Fields, Central Park, New York City

(Venice, Italy) On December 8, 1980, I was living in the West Village in New York, studying theater with Stella Adler, and working part-time as a waitress at a pub called Traders Inn on Hudson Street between West 11th and Bank. I lived right around the corner, and had gotten home about 11:00 PM. My phone rang a little while later. It was my sister calling from New Jersey.

"John Lennon has been shot."

I was stunned. I said, "But he's going to be OK..."

"No," she said. "I don't think so. I think he's dead."

The way the world found out so quickly about John Lennon's murder was by synchronicity -- even at the moment of his death, it seems that John Lennon was destined to be a topic of the entire planet's conversation. On the night of December 8, 1980, a news producer and journalist for ABC Eye Witness News named Alan Weiss had been hit by a taxi while riding his motorcycle, and had been taken to Roosevelt Hospital. Weiss just happened to be on a gurney in the emergency room when a man with bullet wounds was rushed into the room next to his. He thought he heard the name "John Lennon."

Weiss then saw a weeping woman who he thought was Yoko Ono. He got off his gurney and tried to make his way to the pay phone he had seen at the entrance, but was blocked by security. The same police officer who had brought Weiss to the hospital spotted him and told security to let Weiss go.

As the officer was helping Weiss back to his gurney, they passed the nurses' station. Weiss asked the officer if he could call his newsroom. The cop leaned over and picked up the phone that was on the nurses' desk and handed it to Weiss.

The assignment editor at the newsroom confirmed that an ambulance had been dispatched to The Dakota, John Lennon's home, shortly before. That was when Weiss knew for sure that it was John Lennon who had been shot -- sheer coincidence that even at the moment of John Lennon’s death there was a reporter there to record the moment for history.
 
It is difficult to describe the shock that shattered the planet that night. I remember the weather was unusually mild for the month of December. Numb, moving through a world that had suddenly turned surreal, I went back down to the Traders Inn pub and sat at the bar and watched the news. A swarm of New Yorkers rushed to John Lennon's home at The Dakota on 72nd Street and Central Park West, compelled by a common grief. I didn't go uptown that night; I went the next day. It was comforting to be in the company of fellow human beings at the moment the world flipped on its head.
 
Like many people of my generation, I was a huge John Lennon fan. In 1980, living in New York City was like living in paradise. Ed Koch was the mayor, and you could see him all around town, chatting with his constituents. The West Village was brimming with creative people -- everybody was an artist, or an actor, or a writer, or a dancer, or a musician, or a fashion designer.

It seemed like one great festival with comedians in Washington Square Park and Sunday brunch with the New York Times and free copies of the Village Voice. Newly-arrived immigrants would feed us exotic food at funky eateries -- back then, everyone could manage to find a way to live in the city if they were determined enough, with rent-controlled apartments protecting the old-timers.

And John Lennon himself was living on the Upper West Side, strolling around Central Park, finally making music again, posing for the camera wearing a New York City t-shirt. Back then, New York City was the place to be, churning with creative energy.
 
Then four shots rang out and the world would never be the same again. 
 
I've written about December 8th many times before, which is the birthday of my protagonist, Harley Columba, a young artist who was born at Roosevelt Hospital on the anniversary of John Lennon's death, and whose goal is to reach the Imagine Circle in Central Park. John Lennon was my hero, and I was deeply affected by his death, as were so many millions of others. It is also the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a national holiday here in Italy. Here's a post from last year, with links to previous posts:
 
Ciao from Venezia,
Cat Bauer

Sunday, November 22, 2020

Visiting a Plague Church during a Pandemic - The Feast of the Madonna della Salute, Venice 2020 - Featuring Baldassare Longhena's High Altar

Madonna della Salute 2020 - Photo: Cat Bauer

(Venice, Italy) No blazing candles. No pontoon bridge. No balloons for the children, or sweets from the South of Italy. We can only imagine the discussions that went on as to how to celebrate the Feast of the Madonna della Salute this November 21st -- the day when Venice gives thanks for deliverance from the plague -- in a year restricted by a global pandemic. 
 
Normally, thousands of Venetians pour across a pontoon bridge that stretches across the Grand Canal from the Gritti Palace over to the Dorosoduro side. This year, pedestrian traffic was steered in a one-way direction through the Dorsoduro Museum Mile until you arrived in the Campo della Salute. Along the way, you could buy votive candles as usual -- but this year the eager masses waiting to have their wicks set ablaze inside the church was restricted. Instead, upon reaching the campo, you got in line and waited to enter through the front door of the church. The line moved quickly enough, and everyone was respectful. It goes without saying that everybody was required to wear masks indoors and out -- that is a rule throughout Italy.

Once inside, you placed your candles in wooden boxes scattered throughout the interior of the church "as a votive gift that will become a work of charity and support for families in economic difficulty." The magnificent rose mosaic was cordoned off, so I got my annual Beam-Me-Up-Scotty power charge not by standing in the center, but from a short distance away.

Church of Madonna della Salute on Nov. 21, 2020 - Photo: Cat Bauer

In 1630, Venice was raging with the plague, which, we now know, was caused by a bacteria, as opposed to COVID-19, which is caused by a virus. On October 22, 1630, the Venetian Senate decreed that in order to give thanks for the liberation of Venice from the plague that had wiped out a third of the population, they would build a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, under whose protection Venice was founded on the Feast of the Annunciation, March 25, 421. 
 
Once inside, you could sit in the pews to pray, which I did. I contemplated the high altar, which was designed by Baldassare Longhena, as was the Church of Madonna della Salute itself. The impressive marble statues were carved by the Flemish sculptor, Josse de Corte.
 
High altar of the Church of Madonna della Salute - Photo: Cat Bauer
 
What fascinates me about the 17th-century high altar is that the females are the ones enacting the scene, and the males, Saint Mark, Venice's patron saint, and Saint Lorenzo Giustiniani, who was the first Patriarch of Venice, are only onlookers to the drama going on over their heads.

In the center of the altar stands the Virgin, holding the infant Christ, surrounded by cherubs. To her right, Venice, in the form of a beautiful young woman, is on her knees, pleading for help. To the left of the Virgin is a gruesome old woman, who represents the plague. A torch held by a cherub burns into the old woman's side; her arms flail as she teeters towards the edge. The Virgin does not even glance at the old woman. The expression on the Virgin's face is one of quiet confidence that the black death will be vanquished. The entire scene is supported by caryatid angels, which are sculptured female figures used as columns. 
 
Below the Virgin, in the center of the altar, is the star of the show, the Byzantine Black Madonna, whose powerful energy has attracted the faithful for centuries. The Panagia Mesopantitisa -- Madonna the Mediator -- was brought to Venice from Crete by Doge Francesco Morosini after the War of Candia with the Ottoman Turks.
 
Despite the restricted nature of the celebration this year, the spiritual elements were firmly in place. They say that Longhena's design of the church may have been inspired by a woodcutting in the mysterious Renaissance book Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. To me, simply entering the Church of the Madonna della Salute and communing with the Panagia Mesopantitisa is enough to boost one's immune system for another year. 

The only element I really missed was the lighting of the candles, so afterwards I went to the Church of Santo Stefano, where Francesco Morosini is buried, and lit a candle in front of the Madonna there.
 

I've written about the Feast of the Madonna della Salute many times before. My post from 2013 will give you an idea what the celebration is like in normal times:
 
Wishing everyone good health, vitality and compassion.
 
Ciao from Venezia,
Cat Bauer

Thursday, November 12, 2020

One Year After the Venice Flood - Yes, Walter Mutti's Newsstand is Back!

The Zattere during acqua alta - Photo: Cat Bauer
 
(Venice, Italy) One year ago, on the night of November 12, 2019, Venice was barraged by rising tides and whipped by winds of more than 75 miles per hour. Walter Mutti's newsstand struggled to remain upright in its perilous position on the Zattere, the main promenade that runs along the Giudecca Canal. Even though it was constructed from heavy steel, Walter's edicola was no match for the forces of nature. The violent winds knocked the newsstand over. The crashing waves swept it into the tumultuous waters. Walter's edicola, a local landmark for both Venetians and tourists, ended up on the bottom of the Giudecca Canal.
 
Walter's edicola in the flood

Walter had tried to salvage what he could from the newsstand that had been in his family for 25 years, but was forced to surrender to the powers of Mother Nature. In desperation, he had tweeted a photo of his edicola uprooted by the swirling waters with the caption "aiutoooooo" which means "Help!!!!!!"
 
Over on the mainland, Carlo Gardan, whose Twitter handle is @LordOfVenice, felt compelled to take action. He had never actually met Walter Mutti, but they followed each other on Twitter. Carlo immediately set up a "Go Fund Me" account which raised over €20,000 in 48 hours from small donations both locally and all over the globe. As images of a flooded, devastated Venice flashed across social media, Walter's simple newsstand personalized the tragedy and struck a chord in the heart of humanity. In contrast to the 1966 flood when Venice was completely isolated from the rest of the world for 22 hours, this time, thanks to the Internet, the city remained connected. The generous response was humanity at its best.

Walter Mutti & Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte
 
Giuseppe Conte, the Prime Minister of Italy, arrived in Venice on November 14th. Conte tweeted a photo of himself and Walter with the caption: "Walter Mutti has lost his newsstand, submerged by the rush of the waters. This morning I met him in the Prefecture in #Venezia: I listened to his words of pain, like many other Venetian citizens who have come to me. The Government is supportive and present, no one will be alone."
 
Last winter it seemed like the acqua alta would never end. Day after day the wail of the high water siren pierced the air as a weary city braced for another day of mopping out homes and drying out shops. There was a feeling of community as residents lent each other a helping hand, but also fury that MOSE, the flood barrier that was supposed to protect Venice from acqua alta, did not function after being mired in political corruption, with decades of work and billions of euro seemingly sucked into a vast black hole.

Walter's edicola emerges from the Giudecca Canal - Photo: Cat Bauer
Walter's edicola emerges from the Giudecca Canal - Photo: Cat Bauer
 
At the beginning of December, divers from Venice's Fire Department found Walter's newsstand submerged in the Guidecca Canal. Luigi Brugnaro, the Mayor of Venice, declared that the edicola would be the "tangible symbol of a city that does not give up and is reborn." On an overcast December 6th, I joined a small crowd as we watched the newsstand emerge from the dark waters. It did feel like the edicola might represent a glimmer of hope. Slowly, slowly, life began to return to normal -- by the time Christmas season arrived, a great effort had been made to have carols and twinkling lights decorate Piazza San Marco, and importantly, locals had returned to the main square.

Then on February 23, 2020, Venice again was thrust into the international spotlight when Carnival was abruptly cancelled two days early due to a mysterious new virus that was sweeping the planet. The amount of visitors to Venice had already been greatly reduced after the winter floods. In the early morning hours of March 8, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced that the entire nation of Italy would be quarantined -- the first country in the West to go into hibernation. Venice had not yet completely recovered from the flood, and was now hit by the lockdown. For a city whose main industry was tourism, it was another calamitous blow.
 
With everyone confined to their homes, and tourists forbidden to travel, the streets of Venice were eerily void of people while, at the same time, something magical happened -- nature flourished. The waters and canals became so still and clear that frolicking fish and other underwater creatures were visible. It was as if Mother Nature had shut down the entire frenetic enterprise that had been based on overtourism and consumption. Using weapons of the gods -- first with the flood and then with the plague -- Mother Nature claimed back the lagoon.

Newsstands were one of the few businesses that were allowed to remain open during the lockdown, but how would Walter sell his wares without his edicola? Thanks to the Don Orione Institute, a Christian charity, Walter was granted the use of a small space next to the location of his newsstand in order to stay in business. 

In May, Venice slowly emerged from hibernation, blinking her eyes, gauging the scene. First, visitors from the Veneto region arrived in town, followed by other Italian regions, then by most of Europe. Americans could not travel to Venice without a valid reason to come here -- a rule that remains in effect to this day. By summer, life had almost returned to normal.
 
On the sunny afternoon of August 10, 2020, Walter held a small, local gathering to finally celebrate the re-opening of his edicola, which had been completely restored with the donations from the Go Fund Me campaign and money allotted by the government. I was there, and met Carlo Gardan, the man behind the @LordOfVenice social media account who had initiated the fundraiser. Thanks to the combined efforts of ordinary people and powerful institutions, Walter Mutti's newsstand had been lifted out of the water and placed back on its feet.

Venice, Italy - Photo: Cat Bauer
Venice, Italy - Photo: Cat Bauer
 
On October 3, 2020, Venice experienced its first exceptional high tide of the season. To the astonishment and joy of Venetians, MOSE, the flood barrier, actually held back the tide! It is a temporary solution to a complex problem with much more work to be done, but it provides a breath of air to a city that was drowning.
 
If there is a message that can be delivered by the salvation of Walter's edicola, it might be that the human spirit can accomplish great things when we use our collective power for the forces of good. That the majestic city of Venice continues to exist inside her watery home after 1,600 years is a testament to impossible dreams coming true. At the time I write this, the planet is again being challenged by a surge of COVID-19. Let us hope that Venice and the world do not fall back into the destructive patterns of the past, but find new, creative ways to move forward to the future.

Ciao from Venezia,
Cat Bauer

Sunday, November 1, 2020

Mystical Hallowmass Season in Venice during the Blue Moon

San Michele, Venice's Island of the Dead - Photo: Cat Bauer
San Michele, Venice's Island of the Dead - Photo: Cat Bauer

(Venice, Italy) A heavy mist engulfed Venice on All Hallows' Eve, adding a mystical element to the Hallowmass season. Enhanced by the light of the full Blue Moon, the air was so thick that it seemed to swirl with the phantoms of the ancestors. Now is the time of their annual journey through the veil that divides the realm of the dead from the world of the living.
 
San Michele, the cemetery island, is where Venice buries her dead. Each year thousands of Venetians make the pilgrimage to tend the tombs of their families, friends and loved ones. The ancient Christian festival to honor the dead includes All Hallows' Eve, or Halloween on October 31; All Hallows' Day, or All Saints' Day on November 1; and All Souls' Day, or the Day of the Dead on November 2. It is a time to reinforce the spiritual bond with those who have gone before.
 
Dante's Barque by Georgy Frangulyan - Photo: Cat Bauer
Dante's Barque by Georgy Frangulyan - Photo: Cat Bauer
 
The vaporetto that carries the living to the island of the dead passes by "Dante's Barque," the haunting bronze sculpture that Russian artist Georgy Frangulyan created after he saw a vision of Virgil and Dante standing in a boat on the water of the lagoon. This year, Dante's outstretched arm pointed through the dense calìgo to an otherworldly island blanketed in a white cloud, an island where souls could easily slip from one dimension to another. I wrote about the sculpture last year when a floating bridge connected the Island of San Michele to Fondamenta Nuove, a bridge which has not been constructed in these coronavirus times. Follow the link to read the post: 

Honoring Death in Venice - A Bridge Across the Lagoon

 
Surrounded by cypress trees and birdsong, freshening up the graves of the ancestors with flowers and candles is like having a conversation with the wise minds of the past. Venice can seem supernatural even on sunny days, but when the town is immersed in fog the connection to another level of existence feels more powerful. It almost seemed as if the phantoms of the ancestors had managed to visit the Rialto Bridge...

A foggy Grand Canal from the Rialto Bridge - Photo: Cat Bauer
A foggy Grand Canal from the Rialto Bridge - Photo: Cat Bauer
 
"What thou lovest well remains,
the rest is dross
What thou lov'est well will not be reft from thee
What thou lov'est well is your true heritage."
---Ezra Pound, The Pisan Cantos

Ezra Pound is buried in the Evangelical section of San Michele next to his long-time companion, Olga Rudge.
 
Ciao from Venezia,
Cat Bauer

Saturday, October 24, 2020

Ca' Scarpa, a new exhibition space in Treviso, celebrates Venetian architects Carlo Scarpa & his son, Tobia

Entrance to Ca' Scarpa - Photo: Cat Bauer
Entrance to Ca' Scarpa - Photo: Cat Bauer

(Venice, Italy) A new exhibition space opens in Treviso celebrating the great Venetian architects, Carlo Scarpa, and his son, Tobia. The ancient church of Santa Maria Nova was suppressed under Napoleon, then went on to be used as a print warehouse for the Finance Authority. Thanks to Luciano Benetton, one of the co-founders of the Benetton Group, it was recently acquired by Edizione Property, and transformed into a spacious, contemporary cultural space under the guidance of Tobia Scarpa himself.
 
Tobia Scarpa in Ca' Scarpa - Photo by Cat Bauer
Tobia Scarpa in Ca' Scarpa - Photo: Cat Bauer
 
At the press conference, Tobia Scarpa was witty and wise, and at age 85, has the energy and bearing of a man 30 years younger. He quipped: "The man I called my father was an important architect. He gave me a strange name, a Greek name, a Hebrew name. He was my teacher." The lighting for which Tobia Scarpa is so well-known "perfectly illuminates the exhibits." The interior layout is clever and hip, incorporating elements of the ancient church into the open design.  

Ca' Scarpa interior - Photo: Cat Bauer
Ca' Scarpa interior - Photo: Cat Bauer
 
Since 1990, the Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche has instituted the International Carlo Scarpa Prize for Gardens, a campaign which recognizes sites throughout the world that are rich in natural, creative and historic values. The Scientific Committee of the Foundation provides guidelines for actions that increase knowledge, and safeguard and promote the site. This year the Scientific Committee unanimously selected two linked valleys in Cappadocia, Turkey -- the Rose and Red Valleys, or Güllüdere and Kızılçukur in Turkish. 
 
Cappadocia - Photo courtesy Fondazione Benetton

The inauguration of Ca' Scarpa opened with Güllüdere and Kızılçukur: The Rose Valley and the Red Valley in Cappadocia, a photographic exhibition of two valleys where early Christianity, followed by the Byzantium culture, left a rich history of hermit and monastic settlements, churches and sanctuaries scattered amongst the distinct Cappadocian landscape. Rock monuments and fairy chimneys carved by the forces of wind, water and volcanic eruptions were transformed into places of Christian worship -- I have been to Cappadocia myself, and was astounded by the paintings and frescoes of early Christianity preserved inside the rock walls and apiaries. 

Premio Internazionale Carlo Scarpa per il Giardino
seal designed by Carlo Scarpa
 
The 2020 International Carlo Scarpa Prize for Gardens has been awarded to the art historian Maria Andaloro, who has traveled between Italy and Cappadocia since 2006, and is the promoter and director of the research mission organized by the Università della Tuscia. The Prize expresses support for all the people working in Cappadocia to safeguard and raise awareness of a special heritage rich in meaning and teachings. 
 
Interior Ca' Scarpa - Photo: Marco Zanta, courtesy Fondazione Benetton
 
Treviso is a 30 to 40-minute train ride from Venice, depending if you catch the fast train or the local. It is nicknamed "the garden of Venice" for its greenery, and was a favorite vacation spot for Venice's nobility. Ca' Scarpa is a pleasant 10-minute stroll from the train station, with plenty of shops and eateries along the way.  
 
Güllüdere and Kızılçukur: la Valle delle Rose e la Valle Rossa in Cappadocia, curated by Patrizia Boschiero and Luigi Latini, organized by Fondazione Benetton in Ca' Scarpa, the former Church of Santa Maria Nova, runs through January 10, 2021, Thursday and Friday from 3pm to 8pm, and Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 8pm, with free admission. Go to the Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche for more information.

Ciao from Venezia,
Cat Bauer

Saturday, October 17, 2020

A Masterpiece for Venice at Gallerie dell'Accademia - First Up: Lorenzo Lotto's Sacred Conversation

Madonna and Child with Saints Catherine and Thomas (Sacred Conversation) by Lorenzo Lotto (1526-28)

(Venice, Italy) A Masterpiece for Venice is a new initiative that brings exceptional works of the Venetian Renaissance home from abroad for a limited visit. The first painting to sojourn at the Gallerie dell'Accademia is Lorenzo Lotto's vibrant Madonna and Child with Saints Catherine and Thomas (Sacred Conversation) on loan from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. 

The A Masterpiece for Venice project was conceived last November by the Gallerie dell'Accademia, together with Intesa Sanpaolo as the main partner, after Venice was hit by high water and then clobbered by the global pandemic. The initiative hopes to renew and restore valuable relationships with international museums by shining the spotlight on works that rarely travel, giving visitors the opportunity to feast their eyes on masterpieces from the Venetian Renaissance that are not housed in Venice.

"We decided to ask our museum friends for help to bring attention back to the city," explained Giulio Manieri Elia, the Director of the Accademia. "Beauty helps us move forward. In such a complex moment for everyone, art can be a bridge that unites and uplifts us."

Sacred Conversation by Lorenzo Lotto (detail) - Photo: Cat Bauer

POWERFUL WOMEN, CENTURIES AGO

Francesca del Torre, curator of Italian painting of the Renaissance at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna was also on hand at the presentation of the masterpiece. "This painting is one of the most beautiful works in the history of Italian art, and one of Lorenzo Lotto's most Venetian works, created during one of his visits to Venice. With spontaneity and brilliant intuition, Lotto captures the characters' intense dialogue and thoughts about the destiny of Jesus, achieving a perfect balance of gazes, gestures, colors and light.
 
The patrons who commissioned the painting are unknown, but it is assumed they were wealthy and prestigious due to Lotto's use of the extremely costly lapis lazuli pigment for the Madonna's dress. The choice to include Saints Catherine and Thomas in the conversation infers that the clients possibly had the same names as the two saints.
 
"Ah, in Vienna there is a painting in which you can hear the bees humming."
Philip Pouncey, British art historian
 
The earliest reference to the painting dates from 1660, when the work was already in the imperial collections. The Sacred Conversation will remain at the Accademia until January 17, 2021. After that, the next masterpiece to visit the lagoon will be Veronese's La Pieta, which will travel to Venice from The Hermitage in St. Petersburg. 

UPDATE: The Sacred Conversation’s sojourn has been extended until February 21, 2021.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Sacred Conversation’s visit in Venice has been extended until April 11, 2021!
 
Go to the Gallerie dell'Accademia for more information.
 
Ciao from Venezia,
Cat Bauer

Friday, October 9, 2020

Van Gogh, The Colors of Life - in Padua, a Day Trip from Venice

Van Gogh - Self Portrait with Grey Felt Hat (1887) - Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam - Photo: Cat Bauer

(Venice, Italy) If you want to get up close and personal with the enigmatic Vincent van Gogh, The Colors of Life at the San Gaetano Cultural Center in Padua gives you the opportunity.With 82 works by Van Gogh himself, and several by Japanese artist Hiroshige -- a major source of the artist's inspiration -- as well as paintings by contemporaries like Pissarro and Seurat, it is the largest Italian exhibition ever dedicated to the Dutch maestro.
 
Unfortunately, there is not one word of English in the exhibition, nor is there an English-language audio guide or tours in English. Therefore, to fully appreciate what The Colors of Life has to offer, if you do not understand Italian, you must do your own homework. It is utter laziness and an insult to visitors on the part of an exhibition that hopes to attract an international crowd. But Van Gogh is so riveting, he speaks to us through the ether without words. 

Here is some very brief background to help you get started.


BACKSTORY:


Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853 in Zundert, a village in the south of the Netherlands, the oldest surviving child of a reputable family. The first-born son, also named Vincent Willem van Gogh -- and also born, incredibly, on March 30 the previous year -- was stillborn. His parents would go on to have five more children. 

Vincent would not decide to become an artist until he was 27-years-old, but in just over a decade, he produced 2,100 works of art. The prolific genius was only 37-years-old when he allegedly shot himself on July 27, 1890, dying 30 hours later. 
 
Van Gogh had a complicated relationship with both his parents, to whom respectability was of upmost importance. His mother, Anna, came from an affluent family in The Hague. She was an avid gardener and amateur artist whose father was a "Royal Bookbinder." Vincent's father, Theodorus or "Dorus," was a parson in the Dutch Reformed Church in Zundert, a predominately Catholic town, who spent long hours alone in his study. 
 
The Van Gogh family was extremely literate, reading aloud to each other in the evenings, and Vincent remained a keen reader all his life. His mother encouraged her children's artistic pursuits, teaching them to draw and paint, determined to cultivate her family's social status. Neither parent was particularly affectionate, but did sacrifice for their children and were concerned for their welfare. Vincent was a shy, lonely, rebellious and eccentric child, causing much disruption in the family, but adored by his younger brother, Theo. At age 11, his insubordination caused his parents to send Vincent to a boarding school.
 
Vincent's parents had met when Anna's much younger sister, Cornelia, married Dorus's older brother, also named Vincent, but known as "Uncle Cent," a wealthy art dealer who would go on to own an elegant townhouse on the outskirts of Paris. 
 
One more time because it's important: At the time they married, Cent and Cornelia both had unmarried siblings teetering on the edge of spinsterdom -- Uncle Cent was the older brother of Vincent Van Gogh's father, Dorus. Aunt Cornelia was the much younger sister of Vincent Van Gogh's mother, Anna. Dorus was a couple years younger than Anna.
 
Keeping it all in the family, Vincent Van Gogh's father, Dorus, age 29, married his mother, Anna, age 31, on May 21, 1851. They began their life together in the small parsonage in Zundert. Uncle Cent would go on to retire early and buy a mansion complete with his art collection in a nearby village. Vincent's aunt and uncle were childless, and played an influential role in Van Gogh's life. In contrast to Vincent's stern parents, Uncle Cent and Auntie Cornelia were full of charm and knew how to entertain.
 
When Vincent was 16-years-old, Uncle Cent gave him the opportunity to carry on in his footsteps with a position as an apprentice in The Hague branch of the Parisian art dealership, Groupil & Cie, of which Cent was a partner. There, Vincent drifted to the dark side of life, drinking and frequenting brothels. He did not have the personality to deal with the public, but had an encyclopedic memory of Groupil's inventory. 
 
Vincent was transferred to London, then Paris, where he completely flipped and transformed his carnal desires into a an obsession with religion and the Bible. He began his lifelong fascination with nature and divinity. He became frustrated with Groupil's wealthy clientele, who wanted fashionable art, not work with meaning and quality. Vincent learned a lot about art and artists, but increasingly had issues with the dealership's commodification of art, seeing his life suited more for the ministry, not as a merchant -- though ironically he would spend much of his short life trying to sell his artwork, without success. During Christmas 1875, Goupil's busiest time of year, Vincent went home to Holland without permission, and was given his notice when he returned to Paris in January.

Van Gogh then took positions in a variety of professions, working as a teacher, a minister's assistant and in a bookshop. As Vincent grew older he became increasingly more religious, deciding to become a pastor, but failed the theology entrance exam at the University of Amsterdam. In January 1879, at the age of 25, he became a missionary in the coal-mining district of Borinage in Belgium, all the while looking at life through the distinct eyes of an artist. 
 
In 1880, four years after leaving the art dealership and after much soul-searching, Vincent van Gogh decided to devote his life to art, which he considered his spiritual calling.

Much of our knowledge about Van Gogh's life and thoughts comes from the hundreds of letters between him and his younger brother, Theo, who financially supported and encouraged Van Gogh throughout his life. Theo was four years younger than Vincent, and died six months after his older brother at the age of 33. Theo was a successful and respected art dealer, working, as Vincent had done before, for Goupil & Cie in Paris. He introduced Dutch and French contemporary art to the public, and was instrumental in the popularity of Impressionists like Claude Monet and Edgar Degas. Theo deeply believed in the talent of Vincent Van Gogh when no one else did. 

THE EXHIBITION


Curator Marco Goldin has divided the exhibition into seven different sections, kicking it off with Van Gogh's The Painter on the Road to Tarascon as seen through the eyes of the artist, Francis Bacon (1909-1992). Then it weaves its way through Van Gogh's life by chronological order and by where he was based when he created his singular works of art. By structuring the exhibition in this manner, we see Van Gogh grow as an artist, and the dramatic impact his environment had upon his work.  

Study for ‘Portrait of Van Gogh IV’(1957) Tate, London 
 
1. The painter as a hero. Francis Bacon looks at Van Gogh

Curator Marco Goldin does not think that Van Gogh was crazy. He sees Van Gogh as a modern hero who had a mission to complete, and sacrificed everything to do so. Goldin would like the exhibition to speak of the painter as a hero through his works and meetings with fate. 
 
In the summer of 1888, during his time in Arles, France, Van Gogh painted a small canvas entitled The Painter on the Road to Tarascon, which was later housed in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Magdeburg, Germany. The painting was destroyed by Allied bombing in World War II. The painting of the solitary artist -- Van Gogh himself -- walking under the sun on his way to work in the countryside survived only in photographs.

At the end of 1956, Francis Bacon pinned the image of the destroyed painting to the wall of his studio. He wanted to pay homage to the Dutch artist who had so inspired him, even traveling to that same road in the south of France. The exhibition opens with three of Bacon's paintings of the artist on the road to Tarascon.
 
Goldin says:
"Bacon desired to represent Vincent as a wayfarer in constant movement, making the most of that cinematographic angle of the images that made the figure emerge as a silhouette almost burnt by the Provencal sun..." 

 

The Diggers (after Millet) (1880) - © Kröller-Müller Museum

2. The formative years. From the mines of Marcasses to Etten

By January 1879, Van Gogh had taken a post as a missionary in the coal-mining district of Borinage in Belgium, but was dismissed by church officials for "undermining the dignity of the priesthood" after giving up his lodgings to a homeless person and moving to a small hut where he slept on straw. He moved between Brussels, the mines and his parents' home in Etten, where he landed for an extended stay, honing his talent as an artist. There, he fell in love with his older cousin, who refused to marry him.

The section opens with Miners in the Snow and The Diggers, a figure study that Vincent drew after the original by Jean-François Millet, an artist he greatly admired. The drawings are rare surviving examples of Van Gogh's early efforts from September and October 1880. The section continues with Van Gogh's production as an artist-in-training during his time spent in Etten in 1881 with his family.
 
On September 24, 1880, Vincent wrote to Theo: 
"You can see then that I'm working like mad, but for the moment it isn't giving very heartening results. But I have hopes that these thorns will bear white flowers in their time, and that this apparently sterile struggle is nothing other than a labor of giving birth. First pain, then joy afterwards."
After a violent quarrel with his father on Christmas day when Vincent refused to attend church services, he took off the same day to The Hague to try to sell paintings and meet with Anton Mauve, a revered and successful artist married to one of Van Gogh's cousins.
 
Sien with Child on Her Lap (1882) - Kröller-Müller Museum - Photo: Cat Bauer
 
3. Sien and the time at The Hague. Drawings and the first paintings
 
Van Gogh arrived at The Hague at the end of December 1881, and spent three weeks with Anton Mauve in his studio, who encouraged the budding artist, saying "I always thought you were a bloody bore, but now I see that this isn't so," a comment that delighted Van Gogh. Mauve lent him money to rent and furnish a studio. Van Gogh and Mauve would have a falling out after Van Gogh set up domestic arrangements with Sien Hoornik, a former prostitute who had a five-year-old daughter and another child on the way. Sien, her mother and daughter posed for him, and some of these haunting portraits are included in this section. 
 
In September 1883, Van Gogh left for Drenthe, a province in in the northeastern part of the Netherlands, and stayed there for three months. He was enchanted with the landscape which had yet to be touched by modern industrial society.

From a letter to Theo, November 5, 1883:
My dear Theo,

What I think is the best life, oh without even the slightest shadow of a doubt, is a life made up of long years of being in touch with nature out of doors -- and with the something on high -- unfathomable, 'awfully Unnameable,' because one can't find a name for it -- above that nature. Be a peasant -- be, if that were fitting at the present time, a village clergyman or schoolmaster -- be, and given the present time that's the form that seems to me to be the most fitting, be a Painter -- and in doing so as a person you will, after that spell of outdoor life and manual work, as a person you will, in the end and in the passage of years, gradually become something better and deeper. I firmly believe this. 

 

Loom with Weaver (April/May 1884) - © Kröller-Müller Museum
 
4. The years at Nuenen. Between weavers and peasants
 
In December 1883, Van Gogh arrived in Nuenen where his parents had moved the year before, his father taking a position as a pastor in the vicarage.Van Gogh would stay there until 1885, fascinated by the link between the peasant and the land. He considered "the work of the peasant as the purest and most authentic incarnation of the human condition." This period of Van Gogh's life consisted of dark earth tones, not the vivid colors that we think of today. 
 
On March 26, 1885, Vincent's father died of a heart attack. In August, Van Gogh's work was publicly displayed for the first time in the windows of Leur, an art dealer in The Hague. After one of Vincent's young sitters became pregnant, the village priest forbade his parishioners to sit for him. 
 
In November, Van Gogh moved to Antwerp in Belgium, living in poverty, buying Japanese ukiyo-e woodcuts -- which he incorporated into his own work -- and studying color theory in museums, particularly Peter Paul Rubens. By February 1886, he was so poor that he could not pay his rent, so off he dashed to his old stomping grounds in Paris after becoming intrigued by the art of the Impressionists that Theo had described in his letters.

Montmartre dietro il Moulin de la Galette (1887) - Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

5. Paris, oh dear. Van Gogh and modern art
 
Theo was not expecting his brother, who ended up sharing his living quarters. Theo brought Vincent into the current art scene, which caused a major shift in the colors of his palette. He encountered Toulouse-Lautrec, Bernard, Pissarro, Seurat, and Gaugin, who became his friend. Some of the work of Van Gogh's contemporaries are included in this section.

The year 1887 sees the birth of modern art in Van Gogh as he experimented with the new techniques he had encountered in the Parisian environment, as well as his continuing fascination with Japanese art. He developed his own bold, distinct style. But after two years of living in the city, he longed to once again be surrounded by nature and the countryside. On February 19, 1888, he left for Arles in Provence, the south of France.  
 
The Sower (1888) © 2020 Collection Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands
Photo Rik Klein Gotink, Harderwijk
 
6. A decisive year. 1888 Van Gogh at Arles
 
In the nearly 15 months that Vincent would stay in Arles, he created 200 paintings, more than 100 drawings and watercolors, and wrote 200 letters, mostly to his brother, Theo. After corresponding with Theo, the brothers agreed that they would present Paul Gaugin with the option of joining Van Gogh in Arles. Gaugin agreed, and Vincent prepared the Yellow House, which he was renting, for his arrival. In August, while he was waiting for Gaugin, Van Gogh painted his Sunflowers masterpiece. 

Gaugin arrived on October 23, 1888, and the two painted together. The only painting that Gaugin completed in Arles was The Painter of Sunflowers, a portrait of Vincent Van Gogh. As often happened with Van Gogh when he lived under the same roof with fellow human beings, the relationship began to deteriorate. By December, the two had an altercation, resulting in Vincent famously severing his left earlobe with a razor, bandaging the wound, wrapping the earlobe in paper and delivering it to a 17-year-old cleaning girl named Gaby at a brothel frequented by him and Gaugin. 

Van Gogh ended up in the hospital with no recollection of what he had done. On December 24, Theo rushed to board a night train from Paris to Arles after just having proposed marriage to Johanna Bonger -- a woman who would become crucial to our knowledge of Van Gogh today by preserving, editing and translating the letters between her husband and his brother. Theo arrived by his brother's side on Christmas Day. Gaugin fled the scene, fearing the sight of him would further agitate Vincent.

Van Gogh recovered and returned to the Yellow House, but 30 townspeople petitioned to have "the redheaded madman" institutionalized. In May 1889, Van Gogh voluntarily entered an asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. He did not attend his brother's wedding to Johanna in Amsterdam the previous month.

Landscape with Wheat Sheaves and Rising Moon (1889) © 2020 Collection Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands
Photo Rik Klein Gotink, Harderwijk
 
7. Of moons and clouds. Van Gogh and the end of his journey 

Van Gogh stayed at Saint-Rémy from May 1889 through May 1890, producing 150 paintings and hundreds of drawings. The clinic, its garden and the view from his window became the main subjects of his paintings. His art changed again with the application of thick layers of paint, losing the intense colors of the Arles period. 

After a year of confinement, the painter was ready to once again continue his hero's journey, and come face to face with his fate. Despite his prolific output, Van Gogh was not satisfied. On May 1, 1890, he wrote Theo:

"The unfortunate thing is that the people here are too curious, idle and ignorant about painting for it to be possible for me to practice my profession... Ah, if I'd been able to work without this bloody illness! How many things I could have done, isolated from the others, according to what the land would tell me. But yes -- this journey is well and truly finished. Anyway, what consoles me is the great, the very great desire that I have to see you again, you, your wife and your child, and so many friends who have remembered me in my misfortune, as, for that matter, I don't stop thinking of them, either."
 
Vincent left Saint-Rémy and moved to the Paris suburb of Auvers-sur-Oise to be closer to Theo and Dr. Paul Gachet, an amateur painter and doctor who had treated several other artists, recommended by Camille Pissarro. Van Gogh did not place much faith in Gachet, writing, "I've seen Dr. Gachet, who gave me the impression of being rather eccentric, but his doctor's experience must keep him balanced himself while combating the nervous ailment from which it seems to me he's certainly suffering at least as seriously as I am."

Wheat Stacks under a Cloudy Sky (1889) 
© 2020 Collection Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands
Photo Rik Klein Gotink, Harderwijk
 
In the last two months of his life, Van Gogh painted some 80 works, an average of more than one a day. Chestnut trees in blossom, landscapes and houses, portraits -- including two of Dr. Gachet -- and wheat fields are some of the subjects that he visited. It is believed that Wheat Field with Crows painted in July 1890 is his last painting. A similar canvas painted the year before, Wheat Stacks under a Cloudy Sky, while he was at Saint-Rémy is included in the exhibition.
 
On July 27, 1890, Van Gogh shot himself in the chest, although some credence has been given to a theory that he was accidentally shot by a group of teenagers with whom he had been drinking. In any event, he got himself back to inn where he was staying around 9PM. Dr. Gachet was notified, and dressed the wound, saying that he still hoped he could save Vincent's life, to which Van Gogh replied "Then I'll have to do it over again." Theo arrived by train the following afternoon, and spent the last hours of beloved brother's life by his side. 
 
Vincent Willem van Gogh was pronounced dead at 1:30AM, July 30, 1890. Theo later wrote: "One of his last words was, 'I wish I could pass away like this,' and his wish was fulfilled. A few moments and it was over. He had found the rest he could not find on earth..."

Vincent Van Gogh had accomplished his mission, leaving behind more than 2,000 artworks, consisting of 1,100 drawings and sketches and about 900 paintings for us to ponder. Most of his best-known works were produced during the final two years of his life. The modern hero had sacrificed everything to bring humankind closer to forces of heaven.

Theo would die six months after his brother on January 25, 1891 at the age of 33, leaving Johanna a widow with an infant son named Vincent and hundreds of letters Vincent van Gogh had written to Theo, which she transformed into the libretto of the visual opera created by Vincent van Gogh.

Van Gogh - The Colors of Life opens on October 10, 2020 and runs through April 11, 2021 at the San Gaetano Cultural Center in Padua, about a half hour outside Venice by train. The pleasant walk to the cultural center is about 15 minutes, with the chance to visit the newly-restored gardens at Giardini Giotto. If you are clever, you can combine a visit to the Van Gogh exhibition with a stop at the Scrovegni Chapel, which is on the way, to see Giotto's magnificent frescoes, which I wrote about back in July 2017 in a post entitled The Most Powerful Kiss in Art.

Reservations and more information, some of it in English, is on the site of Linea d'Ombra, curator Marco Goldin's global management company for art exhibitions. Be warned that the English translation of the exhibition's sections has not been updated accurately to include The Colors of Life in its present form. Much of what I've written in this post is the result of my own research. An excellent resource, of course, is the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. You can find all Van Gogh’s letters with annotations on their site. 

Ciao from Venezia,
Cat Bauer