Continuing Education

Five details and the five paintings they come from. From the Alte pinakothek in Munich (was inbetween flights from Rome...) Painters: da Vinci , Bellini, Altdorfer, Tiepolo, and de Heem. #details #altepinakothek #romeinstituteofliberalarts

Saw the new Velasquez painting last night that just arrived on loan at the Galleria Borghese. It shows a kitchen maid reacting with surprise and attention to the supper of Emmaus (where Christ reveals himself to the apostles) in the back corner. Is the small image of the dinner the view through a window or a picture hanging on the kitchen wall? We think of a realistic painting (like Velasquez's) as a window into a far away event. We are looking at an event that is invisible to us as if it were before us. The maid is not looking at the image, but seems to be listening. Faith comes through hearing, not sight. A friend suggested that if the image of the supper is a picture, then it is like a story from a book, the Bible. If it is instead a window it is the presence of God. Perhaps the presence of God and the reality of a painting share this hiddenness that reveals itself as if behind us, distant and invisible but always capable of appearing and revealing the close at hand ordinary world we inhabit as suddenly sacred. The Velasquez is is a perfect fit in the Caravaggio room in the Borghese. #romeinstituteofliberalarts #rome #galleriaborghese #velasquez #realism

More images of Naples, the Jago Museum, with his Narcissus, female David, and his aged Venus. Wonderful to think about his sculptures during a visit to the MANN archeological museum afterwards. Naples is infinite...a plate that belonged to Cleopatra with allegorical representation of Egypt, Caravaggio's Taking of Christ(with the artist peering over the shoulder of the soldiers with his lamp), a baroque courtyard... #romeinstituteofliberalarts #napoli #naples #jagomuseum #caravaggio

Spent a couple of days in Naples, a city intensely alive and yet full of its past. Joe MacFarland showed us the balcony where Garibaldi announced the unity of northern and southern Italy. And he showed us a bruschetta with a caramelized onion marmalade with anchovies with a side of salmon mousse. #romeinstituteofliberalarts #napoli #naples

Things seen on the way to the Mario Praz museum yesterday. The building with the frescos on the outside was Praz's house. #rome #romeinstituteofliberalarts #walkinrome

More from the Museo Mario Praz today. Themes of death and love recurring in the house. The two large Eros statues look at love from both sides: Eros pulling out his arrows on the hunt, and Eros breaking his bow (and, as the excellent museum docent pointed out to us, placed right next to an image of Praz in old age). He put a mirror in almost every room. Mirrors, love, death...there's a kind of hieroglyphics in these rooms. #rome #romeinstituteofliberalarts #museomariopraz #curiosityandcollectors

The Museum of Mario Praz finally just reopening after COVID. Incredible collection of neo-classical furniture. Ok, it was his fetish, but you catch the bug when you step inside. A lot of loose psychic energy in here. Each object and the ensemble can hypnotize. Note the artificial flowers made entirely of shells, the writing desk for ladies only with a tiny space for the legs, and the full length portrait done as a collage. Appropriately, the emblem of architecture and poetry in gold relief on wood, pictured here, hung above the entrance to the house. Fascinating to me how a guy with taste like this would also write the great book on decadence ("The Romantic Agony", but the title is better in Italian.) #romeinstituteofliberalarts #museomariopraz #Lacarnelamorteeildiavolonellaletteraturaromantica #neoclassicissm

Stopped at Santa Costanza yesterday, an imperial mausoleum based on the Pantheon, built c. 380 AD with recycled columns from Roman buildings from a few centuries earlier, and decorated with gorgeous mosaics blending Christian and Bacchic imagery. And this place is always empty... #romeinstituteofliberalarts #rome #ancientrome #santacostanza

Nice view from the Acqua Paola today with a rainbow in the distance behind the Villa Medici, seagull also collaborating. #rome #romeinstituteofliberalarts

Five details and the five paintings they come from. From the Alte pinakothek in Munich (was inbetween flights from Rome...) Painters: da Vinci , Bellini, Altdorfer, Tiepolo, and de Heem. #details #altepinakothek #romeinstituteofliberalarts

Saw the new Velasquez painting last night that just arrived on loan at the Galleria Borghese. It shows a kitchen maid reacting with surprise and attention to the supper of Emmaus (where Christ reveals himself to the apostles) in the back corner. Is the small image of the dinner the view through a window or a picture hanging on the kitchen wall? We think of a realistic painting (like Velasquez's) as a window into a far away event. We are looking at an event that is invisible to us as if it were before us. The maid is not looking at the image, but seems to be listening. Faith comes through hearing, not sight. A friend suggested that if the image of the supper is a picture, then it is like a story from a book, the Bible. If it is instead a window it is the presence of God. Perhaps the presence of God and the reality of a painting share this hiddenness that reveals itself as if behind us, distant and invisible but always capable of appearing and revealing the close at hand ordinary world we inhabit as suddenly sacred. The Velasquez is is a perfect fit in the Caravaggio room in the Borghese. #romeinstituteofliberalarts #rome #galleriaborghese #velasquez #realism

More images of Naples, the Jago Museum, with his Narcissus, female David, and his aged Venus. Wonderful to think about his sculptures during a visit to the MANN archeological museum afterwards. Naples is infinite...a plate that belonged to Cleopatra with allegorical representation of Egypt, Caravaggio's Taking of Christ(with the artist peering over the shoulder of the soldiers with his lamp), a baroque courtyard... #romeinstituteofliberalarts #napoli #naples #jagomuseum #caravaggio

Spent a couple of days in Naples, a city intensely alive and yet full of its past. Joe MacFarland showed us the balcony where Garibaldi announced the unity of northern and southern Italy. And he showed us a bruschetta with a caramelized onion marmalade with anchovies with a side of salmon mousse. #romeinstituteofliberalarts #napoli #naples