September 20, 2011
Hi Boodelina.
Fall is here. The weather is divine
– my favorite time of year. Actually I like all of the year except humid
weather, which in New York is most of the summer and which in turn makes it one
of the most despicable places on earth for July and August. So, I spent most of
July in Canada at my brother’s place in Ottawa. He has a large swimming pool
and an extra car for me to tool around in. He also has a very nice mountain
bike that I ride every day. Ottawa has hundreds of miles of bike paths
meandering all over the city – my favorite being along the Rideau Canal which
runs for miles along an exquisite, bucolic and perfectly maintained park in the
English style. The air is sweet and every day was sunny and cool. So nice.
While there I saw that the National
Gallery of Canada had an exhibition called “Caravaggio and his School” so I raced over to see the show and it was
beautifully curated although I must say Caravaggio has never been one of my
favorites – genius that he was. Others included in the exhibition appealed to
me more – Gentileschi, Manfredi, Gerard Van Honthorst aka Gherardo delle Notti because of his nighttime
candlelit subjects. I did however, learn that Caravaggio was the first
to paint from a live model without first doing a series of sketches or drawings
“thus giving his canvases a sense of immediacy by making the viewer an active
participant” as they pointed out in the museum text. The show was gruesome.
Gerard Van Honthorst’s St. Sebastian in the repose of death has a perfectly
ghoulish yellow/green tinge to the skin but is yet unconvincing because the
arrow wounds are too neat. And Ghentileschi’s “Judith Beheading Holofrenes” is
better than any modern day horror film as her maidservant holds Holofrenes down
while Judith slices his neck with a bejeweled scabbard. He got his comeuppance!
No comments:
Post a Comment