The Roman Forum, An Ancient Relic Then & Now

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ancient ruins, History, Paintings, photography, Rome, The Roman Forum, travel

The Roman Forum lies right behind the Colosseum, that I wrote about last week. It is the great plaza where Caesar and Augustus and other Roman emperors once trod and, like the Colosseum, has been a mecca for tourists, artists and photographers down through the ages.

It was mostly in ruins when the Vikings first sailed up the Tiber River to gaze at this wonderland of antiquity.

A View of the Roman Forum today, image from Wikipedia

I was there for one short and very hot afternoon last summer. I didn’t take as many photos as I wish I had, but the views I’ve become most enamored by are the ones that artists painted hundreds of years ago. You will find my photos mixed among those below.

By Giovanni Paolo Panini, 1691 – 1765

By Cannaletto in 1742

By Franz Kaisermann, 1765 – 1833

Watercolor by David Roberts, 1835

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Ancient Relic of Rome – The Colosseum, Now & Then

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Paintings, photography, Rome, The Coloseum, travel

It seems so far away now, and long ago, that trip to Europe last summer. Even more so when re-viewing photographs of The Coloseum and Public Forum, which were ancient even in ancient time, when artists throughout the ages flocked here to paint these wonders that still stand like a thread through time, tying us all together.

Below are a few of my photos of the Coloseum that I took last summer, along with paintings of the same from long, long ago. I’ll do the same for The Public Forum in another post.

The Coloseum by Gasper van Wittel (Vanvitelli), 1652 – 1736

My photo of the interior, 2018

The interior by Thomas Cole, 1832

Here we see the floor of the Coloseum, the arena where the gladiators fought and Christians died, as well as a view under the floor, the little cells where they prepared for battle and were held captive.

The Coloseum cells by Pietro F. Garoli, 1638 – 1716

The cross in the Coloseum was a place of pilgrimage through the ages.

By Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, 1783 – 1853

Night view through arches by Carus Carl Gustav, 1789 – 1869

Arches through arches By Francois-Marius Granet, 1804

Self-portrait with Colosseum, by Maerten van Heemskerch, 1553

I loved seeing this Selfie from the 1500’s! So I’ll end with my own selfie, nearly 500 years later.

Me with Coloseum, not so long ago

Religious Art, Old and New at the Vatican

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art, Italy, museums, Paintings, Rome, The Vatican, travel

Visiting the Vatican Museums while in Rome is a must if you love art and history. The vast richness and splendor of the long halls and chapels, along with the stifling crowds, is almost overwhelming. Too much to really take in. But I found a quiet refuge in the Modern Art gallery tucked away in the middle of the Vatican, where I was able to move at leisure, uncrowded. There I found religious art by Van Gogh, Chagall, Matisse, Kandinsky, Klee, Redon, Picasso, and so many others.

The place I was most excited to see was the Sistine Chapel and Michelangelo”s painting of the Creation of Adam, with God’s finger touching Adam’s. But when I reached the place after being herded through so many countless rooms, I did not recognize it at all. While I found a place against the wall to actually sit and rest my poor feet, I gazed up at the magnificent paintings on the ceiling, not realizing I was in the Sistine Chapel. I was shocked to see the Creation painting, one small rectangle among dozens. Can you find it in the image below?

For some reason I expected that to be the dominant painting covering nearly the entire ceiling. Not so, as you can see. It is almost lost among the others.

Photographs were not allowed in the Sistine Chapel, so the images of the Creation painting featured  above are not mine. The photos below are.

The Sistine Chapel was not the only room where the ceilings and walls were covered in paintings.

But for all the splendor of the long halls and chapels, my favorite rooms and artwork were more intimate and modern.

Sometimes for me, the simplest drawings are the most moving.

These time-worn tiles below . . .

. . . and this little faded alcove above also touched me.

But of course, my favorite is still the Creation painting. Even as small as it is and almost lost among the many, it moves me like no other.

Poem & Paintings, A Song

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art, inspiration, John Muir, Nature, Paintings, poetry

Edvard Munch

The sun does not shine on us
but in us.

The rivers flow not past,
but through us,
thrilling, tingling,
vibrating every fiber and cell
of the substance of our bodies,
making them glide and sing.

Wassily Kandinsky

The trees wave

Gertrude Fiske

and the flowers bloom
in our bodies as well as our souls,

Joaquin Sorolla

and every bird song,
wind song,

Edward Robert Hughes

and tremendous storm song

Edward Dulac

of the rocks in the heart of
the mountains

JMW Turner

is our song,
our very own,

Joaquin Sorolla

and sings our love.
–John Muir

A Symphony in Blue and Gold

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art, blue and gold, color., inspiration, Paintings, personal, Pinterest

Vincent Van Gogh

I know I’ve written about this before, my love affair with the colors blue and gold, how they play so poignantly against each other. I was reminded of this by a quote found on one of my favorite abstract artist’s website, MyMonkey Mind

There is no blue without yellow and without orange.

Vincent Van Gogh

I’m not sure what Van Gogh meant by this, but it struck a chord with me, and I wonder if that is why I love these two colors in combination so much, opposites that cannot be parted, that sing to each other, that create a deep and wide, high and low, dazzling and dark space that fills every corner of my mind.

Blue and Gold was one of the first Pinterest pages I created, just so I could go there and get my fill of that rapture.

Here are a few of my favorites. Tell me, how do they make you feel?

Willem de Kooning

Odilon Redon

Gustav Klimt

Henri Matisse

Emil Nolde

Andre Derrain

Claude Monet

Paul Klee

Pied Beauty, Poem & Paintings

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art, artists, beauty, Gerard Manley Hopkins, inspiration, music, Nature, Paintings, Pied Beauty, poetry

Wassily Kandinsky, Waterfall II

Pied Beauty
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

What is it about “dappled” things that so dazzles us?

I ran across this poem, a favorite of mine, not long ago, and was reminded once again of how much nature inspires and excites us. Painters as well as poets have been praising that pied beauty through their artwork down the ages.

A few of my favorite paintings praising dappled things follows.

Vincent Van Gogh

John Singer Sargeant

John Singer Sargeant

John Singer Sargeant

John Singer Sargeant

Gertrude Fiske

Anne Redpath

Rick Stevens, Immersed

Gustav Klimt

Painting Again, Forest Series

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abstract, art, forest, Mixed Media, Nature, oil pastel, painting, Paintings, trees, watercolor

I’ve started painting again, keeping toward the abstract, still experimenting with water-color and oil pastel, letting them show me how well they play together.

I’d been inspired by some of Rick Steven’s paintings, his intense close-ups of trees and barks. I love the colors, the texture, the shapes.

The painting above was my initial attempt. At first it seemed too vertical, too placid, so I began to build up the horizontal elements, the “foliage,” and finally came to the place where it seemed “done.”

Next I wanted to do a close-up of a shapely tree trunk, and again I was dissatisfied. Too vertical, no clear focus. So I began to add areas of “lichen,” I suppose you could call it, at the lower right and upper left. Something to attract the eye and allow it to move up or down the trunk. At some point it too seemed “complete.” This one may be my favorite of the three. I like the richness of the colors, the texture.

I’m not sure where the last one came from. I wanted to add a human element into the natural, something partially hidden, peeking out, more figurative than figure. The blue sprite appeared. But further down the tree trunk another face emerged, unbidden. With that addition, the painting took on a more ominous than playful feel. Not what I had intended at all. I’m not sure I like this one.  But it haunts me.

 

Down the Rabbit Hole with Salvador Dali

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Alice in Wonderland, art, books, Bruges, illustrations, Paintings, Salvador Dali, sculpture, surrealism, travel

One highlight from my trip to Bruges this summer was visiting the Salvador Dali Museum. Dali is celebrated for his surrealistic paintings, his “art of exaggeration” and love of the bizarre. Less well known, but just as fantastic, are his book illustrations and sculpture.

My favorite was his Alice in Wonderland illustrations. An image of Alice skipping rope is hidden in nearly all the illustrations. See if you can find them.

 

Other drawings and book illustrations follow, among them from Don Quixote, Aladdin and His Lamp, MacBeth, and the Bible.

 

His sculptures are just as wild and wonderful.

 

And all this set in a corner below the famous Bell Tower featured in the equally bizarre and fantastic film In Bruges. No wonder my whole visit there felt surreal.

“There are some days I think I’m going to die from an overdosis of satisfaction.”                      – Salvador Dali

Read more about Dali’s Alice in Wonderland illustrations from Brain Pickings

“Water Falling Through Sunlight” – Poem & Paintings for Troubled Times

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Amy Lowell, art, Emil Nolde, inspiration, JMW Turner, Paintings, poem, poetry

JMW Turner – Sunrise with sea Monstors

September, 1918

This afternoon was the color of water falling through sunlight;

The trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves;

The sidewalks shone like alleys of dropped maple leaves,

And the houses ran along them laughing out of square, open windows.

Under a tree in the park,

Two little boys, lying flat on their faces,

Were carefully gathering red berries

To put in a pasteboard box.

Some day there will be no war,

Then I shall take out this afternoon

And turn it in my fingers,

And remark the sweet taste of it upon my palate,

And note the crisp variety of its flights of leaves.

Today I can only gather it

And put it into my lunch-box,

For I have time for nothing

But the endeavor to balance myself

Upon a broken world.

by Amy Lowell

Emil Nolde – Dark Mountain Landscape

Three Florals & Two Landscapes

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acrylic, art, flowers, Paintings, watercolor

As summer was turning to fall most of my painting was focused on florals and learning to create with acrylics. I’m not sure I like it as much as watercolor yet, but I see its potential. My first attempt was a blue vase of red roses from our garden. It’s sitting on a table near a window. I wanted to capture the simple, feminine shape of the vase and curling petals against the angular background, that cool blue surrounded by all that warmth.  I liked that I could paint over mistakes better with acrylics than with watercolor, and I loved the brilliance of the colors. It was painted on a student grade canvas “skin.” What I don’t like is how it seems to sit on the surface rather than being part of the paper, as you get with watercolor.

Next was a landscape on a canvas panel, which I’m fairly happy with. For a first attempt.

After that came a couple of abstracts, neither satisfactory, as least “yet. ” I think there’s some potential at least with the abstract landscape below. Something’s still missing. The upper left-hand corner is calling to me. We’ll see.

Then I turned back to watercolor, some wet-on-wet work, which I’m not altogether happy with. I think the composition is too linear. I wish I had allowed some of the flowers to spill down on the right side toward the bottom of the page. Maybe I’m not done with this one either.

Finally I turned to painting a companion piece for a watercolor I already have on the wall, one of my first florals. I think this yellow one will go nicely with the pink and I’m happy enough with it to find it “wall-worthy.”

 

In the meantime, I’m still working on my office/art studio conversion so I have more room to spread out and work on more than one piece at once.