Monday 28 May 2012
FEATURE OF THE WEEK: translation wonders
whilst galavanting around tuscany and emilia-romagna last weekend (blog post coming soon...) i stumbled across this little translation gem. directly translating italian to english is one of my favourite things to do. up until now, my favourite has been 'una doccia a telefono' meaning showerhead, but directly translating as 'a shower telephone'. makes sense doesn't it? but whilst scanning the pudding menu in florence, i fear it may have been beaten by the most adorable fantastic bestest translation in the world ever:
Thursday 10 May 2012
FEATURE OF THE WEEK: the cardsharps
in england, i used to wake to the sound of cooing pigeons. in rome, i wake to the sound of 'the cardsharps'...
since moving into my new apartment a month ago, not a day has gone by without a card game being played outside my window. usually the same two men go head to head, and armed with their cards, they play for hours on a small wooden table which moves around the square as they please. as the hours pass, various people come over to see what all of the fuss is about. At the game's climax, crowds of men surround the table and the noise is so deafening that i would probably feel more relaxed lying on the sand of the colosseum with a gladiator's sword at my neck and 50,000 people screaming at the emperor to turn his thumb horizontally...
so why do i call them my 'cardsharps'? this is actually the title of an early work by caravaggio, and one of the first of its kind portraying low-lifes in 16th century roman society. note the man in the photograph on the left hand side is doing exactly what the man at the back of caravaggio's painting is doing (see below): spying on the opponent's cards and gesturing (lets imagine this part is happening in the photograph) the number that should be played by his friend. david hockney argues that caravaggio was the world's first photographer. if hockney is right, then this basically makes me and caravaggio the same person right?
perhaps not. but seeing as the 'cardsharps' in my piazza are up there on my list of favourite things about living in rome, we must have some things in common...
since moving into my new apartment a month ago, not a day has gone by without a card game being played outside my window. usually the same two men go head to head, and armed with their cards, they play for hours on a small wooden table which moves around the square as they please. as the hours pass, various people come over to see what all of the fuss is about. At the game's climax, crowds of men surround the table and the noise is so deafening that i would probably feel more relaxed lying on the sand of the colosseum with a gladiator's sword at my neck and 50,000 people screaming at the emperor to turn his thumb horizontally...
so why do i call them my 'cardsharps'? this is actually the title of an early work by caravaggio, and one of the first of its kind portraying low-lifes in 16th century roman society. note the man in the photograph on the left hand side is doing exactly what the man at the back of caravaggio's painting is doing (see below): spying on the opponent's cards and gesturing (lets imagine this part is happening in the photograph) the number that should be played by his friend. david hockney argues that caravaggio was the world's first photographer. if hockney is right, then this basically makes me and caravaggio the same person right?
perhaps not. but seeing as the 'cardsharps' in my piazza are up there on my list of favourite things about living in rome, we must have some things in common...
EXHIBITION: tintoretto
until the 10th june, balanced on the top of the quirinal hill, you will find tintoretto. unfortunately, the genius himself left us on 31st may 1594 and the last of the tintoretto family died in 1657, but as melania g. mazzucco tells us in the text in the final room 'they left no offspring. only - but perhaps this is everything - their works'. so here, in the 'scuderie del quirinale', we find tintoretto's offspring.
the old stables provide the perfect exhibition space with a naturally divided interior reached by a fantastic sweeping stone staircase. once fininished with tintoretto and all of his wondrousness, the journey back down to the ground floor gives the visitor what is probably one of the best views in rome. unfortunately my experience was tainted somewhat by a group of middle-aged gaggling women pressed up against the glass; but from what i could see through the blowdries, twinsets and tweed jackets, rome was looking pretty good.
jacopo robusti (more commonly known as tintoretto) was a man who liked to involve everyone, it seems. in his paintings, we see the plasticity and fullness of michelangelo's human figures, the deep penetration of space used by raphael in the vatican apartments, and the loose brushwork of contemporary venetian painters such as titian, bassano and el greco; his clientele included doges, but also the lame; and of course, his paradiso which resides in the great council hall of the palazzo ducale in venice includes no less than 500 figures.
but although tintoretto desired to be 'everybody's painter', he miraculously manages to create his own unique style. he often places his figures 'on stage', with dramatic backdrops and signifant levels of action. if we take the miracle of st. mark as an example:
here, we see st. mark descending from heaven to free a slave from torture after he had disobeyed his master in order to worship the saint's relics. as soon as our eye falls upon this painting, we become 'the audience': the action is happening right before us on a stage framed on all sides by temples, scenery and standing with us, other viewers (see bottom left corner). it reminded me of ancient greek theatre. not only did the greeks often set their theatres into the edge of hills and mountains in order to create a beautiful and natural stage set, but they also used an advanced system called a mechane which was a type of crane that enabled characters on stage to be lifted into the air. the effect was called deus ex machina, literally meaning 'god out of the machine', and it was adopted by a number of greek playwrights to represent the deification of certain characters. st. mark swooping into the scene, and indeed other flying figures by tintoretto, reminds us of this greek theatrical tradition. so what does this all mean? well, we all know (spero...) that renaissance or rinascimento means 'rebirth' in reference to the emanation of classical culture in the 15th and 16th centuries. so whether it is conscious or subconscious, what we see tintoretto doing here is defining this term 'renaissance' pictorally by harking back to the traditions of ancient greece. secondo me...
on the other hand, whilst adopting this unique style, there are definitely elements of other artists work in his own. this got me thinking about the development of technique and style between one artist and another, leading me to see why caravaggio was perhaps so controversial... had anyone used a famous roman courtesan to model for a painting of the virgin mary before? no. had anyone decided to plunge their figures into complete darkness, lit only by a severe spotlight? no. he really was the first one to throw a massive spanner in the works. however, if we have a look at the following three paintings, we can recognise a strong thread between each artist's style:
as well as seeing common ground (literally...) in the development of painting, i also noticed that a lot of the subject matter treated by tintoretto is not far off from the goings on of our own 21st century world. take his joseph flees from the advances of posiphar's wife, in which we see joseph rejecting poor old posiphar who lies naked and humiliated on a four poster bed; rejection being a subject matter with which we are all familiar (not speaking from personal experience at all...). or if we look at his fantastic painting showing vulcan walking in on venus and mars having an affair, i could think of only two words: ryan giggs. and finally, something i found highly amusing, was a portrait done by domenico robusti, tintoretto's son. hung towards the end of the exhibition, next to tintoretto's last few works where his painting is of a mature style and subject matter, is the portrait of a woman bearing her breasts. in this painting, finely executed for a man of his age, a woman is shown in profile doing what it says on the tin: flashing. for me, this struck up a similarity between 25 year old men in the 16th century and 25 year old contemporaries of mine in the 21st...
the only difference is, it was domenico's sister...
for more information on the exhibition, as well as others taking place in the scuderie del quirinale, visit Scuderie del Quirinale.
the old stables provide the perfect exhibition space with a naturally divided interior reached by a fantastic sweeping stone staircase. once fininished with tintoretto and all of his wondrousness, the journey back down to the ground floor gives the visitor what is probably one of the best views in rome. unfortunately my experience was tainted somewhat by a group of middle-aged gaggling women pressed up against the glass; but from what i could see through the blowdries, twinsets and tweed jackets, rome was looking pretty good.
jacopo robusti (more commonly known as tintoretto) was a man who liked to involve everyone, it seems. in his paintings, we see the plasticity and fullness of michelangelo's human figures, the deep penetration of space used by raphael in the vatican apartments, and the loose brushwork of contemporary venetian painters such as titian, bassano and el greco; his clientele included doges, but also the lame; and of course, his paradiso which resides in the great council hall of the palazzo ducale in venice includes no less than 500 figures.
but although tintoretto desired to be 'everybody's painter', he miraculously manages to create his own unique style. he often places his figures 'on stage', with dramatic backdrops and signifant levels of action. if we take the miracle of st. mark as an example:
here, we see st. mark descending from heaven to free a slave from torture after he had disobeyed his master in order to worship the saint's relics. as soon as our eye falls upon this painting, we become 'the audience': the action is happening right before us on a stage framed on all sides by temples, scenery and standing with us, other viewers (see bottom left corner). it reminded me of ancient greek theatre. not only did the greeks often set their theatres into the edge of hills and mountains in order to create a beautiful and natural stage set, but they also used an advanced system called a mechane which was a type of crane that enabled characters on stage to be lifted into the air. the effect was called deus ex machina, literally meaning 'god out of the machine', and it was adopted by a number of greek playwrights to represent the deification of certain characters. st. mark swooping into the scene, and indeed other flying figures by tintoretto, reminds us of this greek theatrical tradition. so what does this all mean? well, we all know (spero...) that renaissance or rinascimento means 'rebirth' in reference to the emanation of classical culture in the 15th and 16th centuries. so whether it is conscious or subconscious, what we see tintoretto doing here is defining this term 'renaissance' pictorally by harking back to the traditions of ancient greece. secondo me...
on the other hand, whilst adopting this unique style, there are definitely elements of other artists work in his own. this got me thinking about the development of technique and style between one artist and another, leading me to see why caravaggio was perhaps so controversial... had anyone used a famous roman courtesan to model for a painting of the virgin mary before? no. had anyone decided to plunge their figures into complete darkness, lit only by a severe spotlight? no. he really was the first one to throw a massive spanner in the works. however, if we have a look at the following three paintings, we can recognise a strong thread between each artist's style:
 |
| perugino panel in sequence of the life of jesus in the sistine chapel, painted between 1477-1483. |
 |
| raphael's school of athens, painted between 1510-1511. |
 |
| tintoretto's st.mark's body brought to venice, painted between 1562-1566. |
the only difference is, it was domenico's sister...
for more information on the exhibition, as well as others taking place in the scuderie del quirinale, visit Scuderie del Quirinale.
Thursday 3 May 2012
FEATURE OF THE WEEK: tuesday, chooseday
are you unemployed at the moment? working part-time? (this sounds like one of those self-help adverts). whatever you are doing, if you aren't in full time employment, it is ALWAYS hard to get a balance of worki-ness and free-timey-ness (sounding less like one now). that is why i have invented chooseday: monday, chooseday, wednesday, thursday, friday. unfortunately this pun does not work in italian; martedi not rhyming quite so well. even the americans may find this one a little tough with their 'toosday'. but for us brits, tuesday chooseday works wonderfully.
so what is chooseday? chooseday is a day that i have created for myself. it is not for work. it is not for job-hunting. it is a day for me to 'choose'. maybe i'll choose a museum or exhibition (likely...). maybe i'll choose the theatre. maybe i'll choose to go up the empire state building, ride the london eye or climb kilamanjaro (these are perhaps not such easy options to complete in a day in rome). but i have decided to create this day so that in the potential few months i have left in this fabulous place, i manage to see as much as possible as well as getting on with work and school during the rest of the week. and its structured fun. love a bit of structure.
it is important not to get bogged down with whatever one is doing, but to step back and EXPLORE one's surroundings. for me, living in a foreign city that is full to the brim with culture, this isn't hard. but we must remind ourselves that wherever we are, exciting goings-on are happening right around the corner, its just a matter of putting a 'chooseday' aside to experience them...
so what is chooseday? chooseday is a day that i have created for myself. it is not for work. it is not for job-hunting. it is a day for me to 'choose'. maybe i'll choose a museum or exhibition (likely...). maybe i'll choose the theatre. maybe i'll choose to go up the empire state building, ride the london eye or climb kilamanjaro (these are perhaps not such easy options to complete in a day in rome). but i have decided to create this day so that in the potential few months i have left in this fabulous place, i manage to see as much as possible as well as getting on with work and school during the rest of the week. and its structured fun. love a bit of structure.
it is important not to get bogged down with whatever one is doing, but to step back and EXPLORE one's surroundings. for me, living in a foreign city that is full to the brim with culture, this isn't hard. but we must remind ourselves that wherever we are, exciting goings-on are happening right around the corner, its just a matter of putting a 'chooseday' aside to experience them...
UNA GITA: ostia antica
when i labelled this post 'rome-ing around... the rest of italy', i was really living up to my exaggerative reputation. ostia antica is as much 'the rest of italy' to rome as the uffizi is to florence. what i mean by this, is that you can reach ostia antica with a 1 euro metro ticket and a 20 minute train ride from piramide station on the blue line. molto facile. thus, i couldn't bring myself to title this post 'MINI-BREAK' but have instead entitled it 'UNA GITA' or 'A TRIP'; much more appropriate.
in mary beard's much talked about recent bbc series entitled meet the romans (mainly commented on by a. a. gill with regards to his controversial opinion of beard's appearance as a television presenter) , she takes a day trip to this well-preserved ancient harbour town which, in its heyday, formed strong and important connections between rome and the rest of its empire. [just a quick NB at this point, i was shocked to hear that italy imported ALL of its olive oil in ancient times? spain and north africa were the suppliers for this; and along with wood, leather, grain and dye, rome received this from its neighbouring town, ostia]. beard had significantly hyped up the city for me, telling me that it is unique in an every-day-roman-life aspect as opposed to the splendours of the imperial monuments and buldings that are dispersed throughout rome. now i don't know if it is because i have recently visited pompeii and herculaneum, or whether ruins have now become as mundane to me as zebra crossings, but i liked ostia; i didn't LOVE it. but i know that this is just because i am spoilt. from an objective perspective, for the 'ruin virgin' (...sounds a bit odd) it is a fantastic spot. a quiet, bird-tweety haven just outside of italy's version of bradford (ostia, the modern town, is reputed to be far from beautiful). its size and preservation in relation to its proximity to rome shocked me and certainly humbled what i thought was a sightseeing addiction, making me feel embarassed that this was the first time i had been here in seven months.
the incredible condition of the scavi did make me think, in relation to pompeii and herculaneum, how much difference actually did the lava preservation make to the towns? obviously they were anomalous in that they had been untouched since 79AD when excavations started (whereas ostia was extended, developed and inhabited up until the 18th century), but what we have with ostica antica is a roman town, not dissimilar to those that lay in the shadows of vesuvius; just minus the fiorelli casts and preserved eggs and loaves of bread. a strong hint to humankind's morbid interest as opposed to it's historical curiosity me thinks...
highlights for me involved morphing oneself into a statue by standing behind those beheaded by the papacy on the via delle tombe, the theatrical masks by the theatre, the insulae (or apartment blocks) which enable one to see the cramped living conditions for the majority of roman people, and of course the mosaics for which ostia is famous. unfortunately the large, impressive mosaics in the baths of neptune were covered by large sheets of tarpaulin, leaving the (albeit fantastic) mosaics in the portico by the theatre to constitute ostia's whole mosaic collection. the piste de resistance however, were the latrines. mary beard famously sits on these and talks about the romans 'all s****** together'. i thought i'd give it a go...
so all in all, i give ostia 7/10. a fantastic escape from rome's busy-ness (but then so are the baths of caracalla?), easy to get to, culturally enlightening and a great place to get some photos for the family album...
for both historical and practical information on the site, visit Ostia Antica. to watch mary beard's meet the romans, visit BBC iPlayer/Meet the Romans (only available to residents of the UK).
in mary beard's much talked about recent bbc series entitled meet the romans (mainly commented on by a. a. gill with regards to his controversial opinion of beard's appearance as a television presenter) , she takes a day trip to this well-preserved ancient harbour town which, in its heyday, formed strong and important connections between rome and the rest of its empire. [just a quick NB at this point, i was shocked to hear that italy imported ALL of its olive oil in ancient times? spain and north africa were the suppliers for this; and along with wood, leather, grain and dye, rome received this from its neighbouring town, ostia]. beard had significantly hyped up the city for me, telling me that it is unique in an every-day-roman-life aspect as opposed to the splendours of the imperial monuments and buldings that are dispersed throughout rome. now i don't know if it is because i have recently visited pompeii and herculaneum, or whether ruins have now become as mundane to me as zebra crossings, but i liked ostia; i didn't LOVE it. but i know that this is just because i am spoilt. from an objective perspective, for the 'ruin virgin' (...sounds a bit odd) it is a fantastic spot. a quiet, bird-tweety haven just outside of italy's version of bradford (ostia, the modern town, is reputed to be far from beautiful). its size and preservation in relation to its proximity to rome shocked me and certainly humbled what i thought was a sightseeing addiction, making me feel embarassed that this was the first time i had been here in seven months.
the incredible condition of the scavi did make me think, in relation to pompeii and herculaneum, how much difference actually did the lava preservation make to the towns? obviously they were anomalous in that they had been untouched since 79AD when excavations started (whereas ostia was extended, developed and inhabited up until the 18th century), but what we have with ostica antica is a roman town, not dissimilar to those that lay in the shadows of vesuvius; just minus the fiorelli casts and preserved eggs and loaves of bread. a strong hint to humankind's morbid interest as opposed to it's historical curiosity me thinks...
highlights for me involved morphing oneself into a statue by standing behind those beheaded by the papacy on the via delle tombe, the theatrical masks by the theatre, the insulae (or apartment blocks) which enable one to see the cramped living conditions for the majority of roman people, and of course the mosaics for which ostia is famous. unfortunately the large, impressive mosaics in the baths of neptune were covered by large sheets of tarpaulin, leaving the (albeit fantastic) mosaics in the portico by the theatre to constitute ostia's whole mosaic collection. the piste de resistance however, were the latrines. mary beard famously sits on these and talks about the romans 'all s****** together'. i thought i'd give it a go...
so all in all, i give ostia 7/10. a fantastic escape from rome's busy-ness (but then so are the baths of caracalla?), easy to get to, culturally enlightening and a great place to get some photos for the family album...
for both historical and practical information on the site, visit Ostia Antica. to watch mary beard's meet the romans, visit BBC iPlayer/Meet the Romans (only available to residents of the UK).
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