I found this composition while walking the ramparts and courtyards of the Castel Sant’Angelo, which is a very easy place to get lost in if you’re not paying attention. There are so many levels and layers, both physically and historically. The building was built originally as the funerary monument for the Roman emperor Hadrian. Later it was converted into a fortress for the protection and safety of the Pope. A residential suite complete with reception rooms and treasury (three massive barred iron chests with multiple locks, each of which only one person had the key to, so it would require all the key holders to open each chest) and balconies with sweeping panoramic views of the city were put on the upper tier, and the burial chamber of the emperor Hadrian was converted into a dungeon where prisoners could be thrown to wither and die in darkness and misery.
I had mentioned in an earlier post about Michelangelo and the “Unfinished” sculptures. Here are some of the pieces in the Accademia’s main hall.
Unfinished Sculpture
If you look carefully at them, it’s hard to truly call them unfinished – there is a certain deliberateness about what is carved finely and what is left rough.
Unfinished Sculpture
The coarse textures blend very naturally with the revealed forms. To my eyes, and from my (granted rather limited) experience of stone carving, this kind of texture and modeling is something done very intentionally.
Unfinished Sculpture
While there are certainly areas that are unrefined, the transitions are fascinating and at the very least provide an insight into the working technique of a genius master sculptor, and given how far ahead he was in so many other aspects of his art, it is entirely possible for him to have been five centuries ahead of his time in his thinking, much the way Caravaggio’s paintings were.
Unfinished Sculpture
And I couldn’t let the opportunity pass without remarking on something that virtually everyone who’s ever looked at a Michelangelo painting or sculpture of a woman has noticed- his women are really just men with boobs and long hair. The hand of Mary that’s supporting a very robust looking Jesus in this “unfinished” Pieta is one of the manliest hands I’ve ever seen on a woman.
As promised in the previous post of the ceiling of the Sagrestia Nuova (also a Michelangelo design), here are the Michelangelo sculptures decorating the tombs of Lorenzo di Piero de Medici and Giuliano di Lorenzo de Medici. The great irony of this is that the greatest tombs in the Medici crypt go to the lesser members of the family – all the famous Medicis (Lorenzo Il Magnifico, Cosimo I, Guiliano, etc) are buried in the awe-inspiring-but-somber-and-over-the-top Medici Chapel, a giant domed octagonal chamber lined with dark marble mosaics and sarcophagi, or in the crypt below it.
Lorenzo di Piero de Medici, with Dusk and DawnGiuliano di Lorenzo with Day and NightDusk, Medici Tomb
The male figures of the tomb decorations both appear to be “unfinished”. While Michelangelo did leave Florence for Rome permanently before the sculptural figures were installed and all the tomb decorations complete, there is a debate in the art historical world about how “unfinished” they actually are, thus my use of quotation marks on the word unfinished. Michelangelo left behind enough sculptural works in rough form that some say he was really bad at completing projects, whereas others will argue that they are as finished as he intended them to be. Certainly his reputation as one of the greatest stone carvers ever to live has not been diminished by his “unfinished” pieces.
You can see more of his “unfinished” pieces at the Louvre in Paris and at the Accademia in Florence (the pieces at the Accademia are forthcoming in another blog post).
This is something I’m working on doing more of- photographing people in the wild, so to speak. I do well in the studio, where people are expecting you to take their picture, and for that matter have given you some measure of control over the experience. But “street” photography, photographing people out and about doing things where they’re not expecting to be photographed, well, that’s an entirely different animal. I find it easier to photograph people who are performing or in some other way putting themselves out there to be observed. If nothing else it’s good practice for more elusive subjects.
Juggler, Piazza Navona
This young man was out on the Piazza Navona, juggling this glass sphere. He had a sign up with his busking bowl that described it as a particular kind of juggling – I forget the term, but he would roll the glass sphere up and down his arms, across his neck behind and over his head. Here he has the sphere on his elbow, then at the end of his fingers.
As part of my Michelangelo pilgrimage (the secondary pilgrimage, with the Caravaggio quest being the first one), I wanted to see the Medici chapel with the famous tomb sculptures by Michelangelo. Photos of those sculptures are forthcoming, but first I wanted to lead off with this architectural view of the ceiling.
Dome, Medici Chapel, San Lorenzo
I wasn’t even thinking about it when composing the shot, but in looking at it afterward, there are all these repetitions of threes in the scene – three windows in the lantern, three circles, the lantern and the windows together forming not only a trio of light sources but a visual triangle, and so on.
In 1625, then-Cardinal Barberini acquired a property from the Sforza family in Rome that had a vineyard and ‘palazzetto’. It was on this property he decided to build the Palazzo Barberini. He would go on to become Pope Urban VIII. He hired the famous architect Carlo Maderno to design and build his palace. Along with Maderno was his nephew, Francesco Borromini, who would go on to become one of the best known Baroque architects in Rome. He is largely responsible for the design of the facade, as well as the grand salon, and perhaps most famous of his creations at the palace, the oval staircase.
Borromini Staircase, Palazzo Barberini
Partway through construction, his uncle Carlo Maderno passed away. Completion of the project was then tasked to a new young upstart architect better known at the time as a sculptor, Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Bernini would design a second staircase for the palace, this time a square. The two, Borromini and Bernini would remain professional rivals until Borromini’s suicide in 1667.
Bernini Staircase, Palazzo Barberini
At the ground level, an arcade connects the two staircases. This shot was taken from the entrance to the Borromini staircase, looking down the arcade to the Bernini staircase entrance.
When I get finished processing all 79 rolls of film from this trip, I’ll have more of these to add, but until then, here’s a selection of public fountains. The Italians certainly love their water features and drinking fountains.
I’m certain I mentioned this before about the ancient fountain at the Colosseum, how you plug the bottom to get water to come out a hole in the top of the pipe so you don’t have to bend over to drink.
Ancient Fountain, Colosseum
Well, here you can see that in action, at a similar fountain in the Castel Sant’Angelo:
Drinking Fountain, Castel Sant’Angelo, Rome
And a full view of the fountain:
Acqua Potabile, Castel Sant’Angelo, Rome
Here’s a little fountain in the piazza in front of San Lorenzo in Florence:
Lion Head Fountain, San Lorenzo, Florence
The Cellini fountain and memorial on the Ponte Vecchio. The interesting thing about it is that the fountain and memorial are 19th century, and their placement on the Ponte Vecchio is a little disingenuous.The bridge today is occupied by goldsmiths and jewelers, true, but in Cellini’s day, the Ponte Vecchio was home to butchers. Other than picking up his Saturday prosciutto, he didn’t spend time on the bridge. The modern day jewelers are just claiming inspiration from him.
Cellini Fountain, Ponte Vecchio, Florence
A fountain at the Pantheon, under the obelisk in the plaza in front:
Fountain, Pantheon
Another public drinking fountain, on the Ponte Vecchio, in Florence. This one is actually a drinking fountain, whereas the Cellini monument is purely decorative.
Drinking Fountain, Ponte Vecchio, Florence
The fountain in the forecourt to the Palazzo Barberini, backlit by the afternoon sun:
Fountain, Palazzo Barberini
A fountain in the Villa Borghese park, directly in front of the Palazzo Borghese:
Fountain, Villa Borghese, Rome
A closeup detail of the Villa Borghese fountain:
Fountain, Villa Borghese Park, Rome
A fountain outside the Vatican, with the water spigots emerging from the heads of Papal keys, crowned by a quartet of Papal tiaras:
Papal Tiara and Keys Fountain, Vatican
A garden-variety public drinking fountain in Trastevere, the neighborhood where I lived in Rome:
Water Fountain, Trastevere, Rome
A fountain crowned with a pinecone finial in the Piazza Venezia, especially appropriate decoration as it sits beneath a canopy of the famous pines of Rome.
Here’s a shot I took of the oculus of the Pantheon with my Belair X6-12. The camera has its issues, one of which is the relatively low contrast from its plastic lenses. Most of the time. Here’s a circumstance where it works to my advantage- the interior of the Pantheon is so dark, and the main light source being the oculus, it’s very contrasty. The flat lens on the Belair helps bring out shadow detail where there wouldn’t be as much.
Here are a few shots of the fountains in the Piazza Navona. I chose to photograph details rather than try to take in the whole fountain because there were just too many people in, on, and around the fountains.
River God, Four Rivers Fountain, Piazza NavonaHorse, Four Rivers Fountain, Piazza NavonaTrumpeting Merman, Fountain, Piazza Navona
The piazza is pure chaos – think Times Square but shorter, with much better decoration. There are performers on the piazza doing everything from live music to juggling acts to “living statues” – there was a fake Fakir made to look like he was floating in mid-air, supported by nothing more than an off-center cardboard mailing tube. The fountains, though, are the real stars of the place. They moderate the heat in summer, and provide stunning visual delights in all four seasons. I know it seldom snows in Rome, but I’d love to see them blanketed with a layer of white.
By pure fortunate happenstance, I was in Florence for the opening of the Biennale, an every-two-years art exhibition featuring contemporary artists across all media. Photographers, painters, sculptors working in ceramics, glass, wood, and bronze, video artists and installation artists were all represented. As I was there on opening day, some of the works were still being installed, and many of the artists were present. I got a chance to meet two of them- Xu Lishou and Amir Jabbari.
Xu Lishou
Xu Lishou is a painter from Taiyuan, currently residing in Italy. His work features traditional Chinese themes but painted in a very modern style, using mixed media such as paper pulp and rope to provide high-relief texture. We spoke a little through a friend of his who translated.
Amir Jabbari
I met Amir in the light well of the exhibition hall (the hall is mostly underground, inside the Fortezza Basso, a Medici-era military fortification which still has use today as a base). I had stepped in to photograph the stairways, and he was smoking a cigarette. He is a video artist from Tehran. I did not get to see his video, alas, as it was one of a group of videos on continuous loop in the video exhibition room, and I was feeling under the weather and couldn’t wait for it to come back up.
dcphotoartist 