Place to visit: Church of Sant’Ignazio in Rome.

I recently listend to a National Gallery of Art podcast that made me want to visit Italy.

In one segment,

Facciata di Sant'Ignazio, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Facciata_di_Sant'Ignazio_(Roma).jpg

Trompe l'oeil ceiling, from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/Sant_ignazio_ceiling.jpg

Model of church, from NGA podcast

Model of church, including trompe l'oeil effect, NGA podcast

Trompe l'oeil dome from Sant'Ignazio, from NGA podcast

What that section of the roof actually looks like:

Trompe l'oeil dome. Yes, it's actually completely flat, there is no dome. NGA podcast

On erasing art.

Speaking of erasing, that reminds me of something I found on Youtube yesterday:

Robert Rauschenberg on erasing de Kooning:

On what I did today.

Here’s a post for those who think that I talk too much about what I’m thinking/reading instead of what I’m doing 🙂

I’m excited! Today, I went to two bookstores, one at the end of the street where I live, the other near school, and found four books.

Why so exciting? First of all, American bookstores don’t tend to carry many art/art history books. Second, I want to read these writings in the language in which they were written. Third, the lettres of Cézanne! I’m especially interested in his letters to Zola. During the school year, I skipped my Politics in China class to read Camille Pissarro’s letters to his son, Lucien. In them, he sometimes referred in passing to ‘a recent exhibit by Ms. Cassatt’ (that wasn’t terribly successful among critics), some purchase by Degas of Gauguin’s works, Gauguin’s mad dash to Tahiti, his own days painting, and always, he encouraged Lucien (who was in London) in his printmaking. I think that letters rank very highly among the things I enjoy reading.

1. Paul Klee- Théorie de l’art moderne

Paul Klee, I’ve never been a huge fan of his works, but he taught at the Bauhaus (with Wassily Kandinsky!) and was, therefore, rather articulate about modern art. I was sorely tempted to buy his Notebooks, which contain his lectures at the Bauhaus, but it was 30 euros. Here’s a painting by Klee, at MoMA:

Paul Klee, Twittering Machine (Die Zwitscher-Maschine), MoMA, 1922.

2. Gustave Flaubert- La Tentation de saint Antoine

Julian Barnes wrote a book called Flaubert’s Parrot, in which Barnes quotes Flaubert extensively, thus I’ve wanted to read something by Flaubert for some time now. I was tempted to buy a book of Barnes’s letters, but I’d rather find an English version. They had a larger collection of Julian Barnes than has had any US bookstore that I’ve frequented. Anyway, back to Flaubert. The other reason that I bought this book was because his subject is one that was popular among painters, including Hieronymous Bosch and (followers of?) Pieter Brueghel the Elder, the latter of which I saw at the National Gallery in DC. Here’s are two, first by Bosch, second by followers of Brueghel:

Hieronymous Bosch, la Tentation de saint Antoine.

Follower of Pieter Brueghel, The Temptation of Saint Anthony, c. 1550/1575

3. Paul Cézanne- Correspondance

Correspondances of Cézanne. Enough.

4. Ambroise Vollard- En Écoutant Cézanne, Degas, Renoir

Vollard was an art dealer who supported the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists while most critics were still shredding apart their works, figuratively. His book is a biography based on his encounters with the three painters. Here’s a portrait of Vollard by Cézanne that’s in Paris:

Paul Cézanne, Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, 1899.

I’m not the biggest fan of Renoir, but Degas and Cézanne are probably my two favorites in that group. Very different. I haven’t visited the Musée d’Orsay because I want to begin to understand Cézanne before I go. I think I’m beginning to, I spent most of yesterday on him. I have d’Orsay scheduled for Wednesday.

And just because this makes me laugh:

Edgar Degas, Dancers Practicing at the Barre, 1877, Met Museum

I’m discovering that Cézanne less-explicitly does this more often, with a plateful of apples, that’s mimicked by the arrangement of the tablecloth, or wallpaper design that mimics the lapels of a man’s suit. What’s this? According to the label for this painting at the Met, Degas put the water pitcher to explicitly show the similarity between it and the pose of the girl on the far right. He later wanted to erase the water pitcher from the painting, but the owner wouldn’t allow it.

Iceland: not my favorite country.

Europe flights as of yesterday, courtesy of Fallows blog. Even more bleak today.

Eyjafjallajokull, Iceland volcano wreaking havoc on Europe travel. Looks cool, though. First Iceland's banking system implodes, now it's taking revenge on the economies of all Europe.

From Reuters.fr:

PARIS (Reuters) – Le blocage du ciel français s’est étendu samedi avec la fermeture jusqu’à lundi matin de la plupart des aéroports en raison du nuage de cendres volcaniques venu d’Islande.

La situation est aggravée en France par le chassé-croisé des vacances de printemps, déjà compliqué par une grève qui s’éternise à la SNCF.

Basically three events converge to create chaos:

1. the Iceland volcano has caused the cancellation of all flights in and out of Paris CDG since Friday
2. SNCF, the train union, is on its 12th day of strike.
3. It’s spring vacation in France, everyone (was) planning to travel. But trains running between Paris and the south of France have been disrupted by the strike, and the Iceland volcano has stopped all flights until Monday morning, at least. Yesterday they said Saturday afternoon.

TNC, U.S. Grant, and love.

In TNC’s words:

As was predicted, I’m really enjoying Grant’s memoir. Having spent much of the last year looking at primary 19th century sources, I still can’t shake the feeling that these guys were much better writers. It may just be that writing meant so much more then. For me personally, there’s a lot to be learned from Grant’s prose. His description of falling in love with his wife is rather remarkable, because it evokes romance without a hint of flowery language. He never even uses the word “love.” He just matter of factly explains that when he was called off to fight in Mexico, he suddenly began to feel that he was missing something:

Before I returned I mustered up courage to make known, in the most awkward manner imaginable, the discovery I had made on learning that the 4th infantry had been ordered away from Jefferson Barracks. The young lady afterwards admitted that she too, although until then she had never looked upon me other than as a visitor whose company was agreeable to her, had experienced a depression of spirits she could not account for when the regiment left. Before separating it was definitely understood that at a convenient time we would join our fortunes, and not let the removal of a regiment trouble us.

Indirect way of expressing emotions, a bit? I feel vindicated 🙂

My third visit to Montparnasse…

…yielded this!

小叮当!

According to my professor, Serge Gainsbourg is affectionately known as “l’Homme A Tête De Chou” [Man with a Cabbage Head] because he’s so ugly. Nice, huh.

More pictures after jump.

On Curious George.

Curious George in Paris

Having a very curious (and not-so-humble) George as a roommate, I’m obviously no impartial reader, but I thought this NYTimes piece was pretty well-written. Lately I’ve found its articles and editorials to be not terribly interesting, with some really poorly-chosen subjects (a feature story on a pair of twins living in NYC looking for jobs was a particularly awful one). It’s such that, if they transition to subscription-only, I’m not sure whether I would subscribe.

But on occasion, there is a gem or two, like this:

He imitates gestures, examines objects. He sees a hat, he puts it on his head; he sees a seagull and is determined to fly himself; he sees a telephone and dials, accidentally summoning the fire department; he sees house painters and decides to paint.

His misadventures, particularly in the early books, are ignited by impulse and inquiry, the consequences of wanting to see and to know, and the books’ charm is that they don’t condemn this curiosity; they relish it. Reality’s hard knocks — the chases, the falls, the breaking of limbs and objects — are ultimately taken care of by the nameless man in the yellow hat, who never seems to learn that you don’t leave such a childlike creature alone with a new bike, saying, “Keep close to the house while I am gone.”

In early September 1939, just after World War II began, the Reys — a husband-and-wife team of German Jews living in Paris — sought refuge at Château Feuga, an old castle owned by some friends in southern France. At such a time, Hans A. Rey wrote in a letter, “it feels ridiculous to be thinking about children’s books.” But that is what they were doing, prolifically, including a book about a monkey named Fifi, who later became known as Curious George.

“Little monkeys sometimes forget,” we read of the warnings he regularly violates. Seeing something interesting, George, of course, “could not resist.” He lifts a lid on a pot of spaghetti, plays tricks on his bicycle, races down a fire escape, climbs a tree in a natural history museum. His curiosity is clever, but consequences are never foreseen: he seems to be a fearless 5-year-old.

Yet his romps began at a place and time —Europe in 1939 — when consequences were all, when almost nothing about the world could be relied on, and when curiosity had to take second place to survival. One reason the Jewish Museum has created this exhibition (and why the new Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco will later show it) is that the Reys were not only Jewish, but they also had lives whose trajectory was a consequence of their identity.

The whole article is worth a read. It changes the way one sees Curious George. I didn’t know, for instance, that his parents were Jewish, or that he was born in France! Goodness, it’s a good thing I brought him.

Also, it must be a whole lot of fun researching for/curating something like this. One gets the chance to read through all the primary documents: letters, agendas, journals, photos. It’s the work behind the display that is fascinating.