Ein bisschen Volkskunst II

Well all I can say is "Thank God for digital!"

27 gennaio - Sant'Angela Merici

Día de los Muertos - Mixquic 1987

As I worked on the posting for November 2 - All Soul's Day - one of those little memory drawers opened and I recalled a Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) fiesta back in 1987. Laurent was in Mexico City on his first posting. I was able - through juggled work schedules and thanks to working for an airline - to get down for a month at a time once every two or three months. We were lucky - the peso was low, the economy booming and despite the death and destruction that the 1986 earthquake had caused, the city and country was vibrant and bustling.

Part of learning about the culture was realizing that the images of death were always present - as a theme it ran through art, music, religion and folk traditions. The strange mixture of Aztec and Christian traditions that in another place would seem dark and unduly fatalistic here had an openly sardonic irony that was in so many ways healthier than that Anglo-Protestant fear of death I grew up with.

In Mexico death was part of life and at no time was that more apparent than on the Feast of the Dead. And in particular in the small town of San Andrés Mixquic just south of Mexico City in the Distrito Federal. It is a three day event there - part street fair, part carnival and part honouring the dead by families and friends. Many of the traditions are common to most towns and villages - the bread of the dead, the sugar skulls and strange skeleton figures but in Mixquic they are know for the decorations on the graves and the traditional altars to loved ones set up in homes. Families work on elaborate floral mosaics and prepare graves with candles and incense for a Feast with their Dead.

I did not take many photos that day but I think this one was perhaps the best and seemed to sum up so much of what the day was about.


A left click will take you to a short slide show of a few of the other photos that were taken that day.

05 novembre - Beato Guido Maria Conforti

The Top of the World

My friend Bev seems to be constantly on the move these days - well even more so than she was in the past which is saying a great deal. When I heard from her yesterday she was in Bhutan having come there from Nepal. Her flight out of Kathmandu took her through the Himalayan range and past the highest point of earth: Mount Everest.

Coincidently I was reading a chapter in Jan Morris's A Writer's World - Morris was on the expedition and the one who broke the story of the conquest of Everest in 1953 by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Nepali sherpa Tenzing Norkay - when Bev sent out these pictures. Morris ends the chapter with an amusing aside about a formal celebratory dinner in London.

When we returned to London from Nepal we were invited to a celebratory dinner at Lancaster House, the government's official place of entertainment. I found myself sitting next to the major-domo for the occasion, a delightful elderly courtier of old-school charm, while opposite me sat Tenzing Norkay, away from Asia for the first time in his life. The old gentleman turned to me half-way through the meal and told me that the claret we were drinking was the very last of a particularly good vintage from the cellars of Lancaster House, and possibly the last anywhere in the world. He hoped I was enjoying it. I was most impressed, and look across the table to Tenzing, who most certainly was. He had probably never tasted wine before, and he was radiant with the pride and pleasure of the occasion - a supremely stylish and exotic figure. The lackeys respectfully filled and re-filled his glass, and presently my neighbour turned to me once more. 'Oh, Mr Morris,' he said in his silvery Edwardian cadence, 'how very good it is to see that Mr Tenzing knows a decent claret when he has one.'

Jan Morris - A Writer's World
Faber and Faber Limited - 2003

15 ottobre - Santa Teresa d'Ávila

The Agony and ... the Ecstasy?????

A few weeks ago when my friends Linda and Yves were here we headed down to the Foro Traiano and a exhibition by the renowned American photographer William Klein. Back in the 1956 Klein was a good friend of director Frederico Fellini and come to Roma to work on Nights of Cabiria. While in the Eternal City he photographed scenes from every day life in a city that was slowly emerging from the devastation of World War II. A city which had not yet been taken over by the automobile, whose families had yet to be scattered over the surface of both Italy and the World and where reconstruction had just begun. It is a fascinating record of so much that has disappeared in Roma.

In 1956 there was a fire in the Palazzo Apostolico and word quickly spread throughout the city. There were rumours that the Pope's life was in danger and crowds flocked to St. Peter's Square. Finally after a tense hour or two the Pope - Pius XII - appeared at the window and a roar of thanks rose up from the crowd to greet him. Klein caught both the ecstasy and the slightly comical flavour of the moment. (Remember that a left click will enlarge the photo in a new window.)



The 81 year old Klein came for the opening of the exhibition of 60 of his photographic memories of the Rome of the 50s. He recalled, "that Romans reacted to the camera much like New Yorkers. Everyone felt they deserved to be photographed, immortalized. No why or why me."

10 giugno - Santa Diana

Sunny Italy

Okay this in no way compares with what my friend Dora is dealing with in Virginia but just to dispel all those images from Sleepless in Siena or whatever those gushy novels about the eternal Italian sunshine of romantic minds are called, here's a few photos of the countryside between Bologna and Parma. They were taken Saturday morning from the train.



And it was cold this morning in Parma - definitely sweater, gloves, scarf and hat weather - and I'm sorry but as far as I'm concerned +5c is cold!

07 febbraio - San Riccardo d'Inghilterra

Madrid Nights - Palacio in the Rain

Though the Christmas the lights give Madrid an added glow, it is a city known for the illumination of its streets and buildings. I've heard but can't confirm that it was one of the first, if not the first, European city to light its public buildings at night.

The area around Palacio Real was particularly beautiful even in the rain which fell off and on during a late evening stroll through the area. The lighting here is not the festive creations of Via Gran or Puerta del Sol but has a more romantic - dare I say almost Goyaesque quality - particularly with scuttling clouds and a damp mist.

The Plaza de Oriente is a wide promenade that joins the Teatro Real to the Palazzo Reale grounds. Pride of place in the Plaza is given to Carlos III, who was responsible for much of the remodelling that turned the palace into its present state.
Unusual for the capital of a Catholic country Madrid had no cathedral until construction was begun in 1879 on the Almundena. The cathedral was not completed until 1993 and though the exterior is in harmony with the palace across from it the interior is eclectic and extremely modern. Frankly I found it more imposing at night than during the day.
The largest palace in Europe, the Palacio Real is an impressive structure but it is not difficult to see why the King and his family have chosen to live in a smaller Palace. It may just be the romantic in me but I find that top photo has that brooding quality that I associate with Spanish history.

12 gennaio - Sant'Etelredo di Rievaulx

Siren with a Lens

I fell in love with the circus and Burt Lancaster when I was about 10 or 11. Back in 1956 my brother took me to see Ringling Bros Circus in one of their last appearances under canvas and I was enchanted. That same year Trapeze was released and I remember having the comic book and reading about it in one of the screen story magazines. And it had some poster! Lancaster and Tony Curtis in white circus tights. And standing between them Gina Lollobrigida all spangles, cleavage, doe eyes and pouty lips. But even at 10 the sight of Burt in tights did more for me than Gina in spangles.

La Lolla was one of those buxom foreign stars that came into the studio system as it was fading into oblivion. She was exotic, she was beautiful, she was Italian and she was hot. But she was always more than just T & A - she had a solid career in Italy and proved herself an accomplished actress in several other films that were popular in North America including The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Buona Sera, Mrs Campbell (the inspiration (?) for Momma Mia).

But there were other things besides film work that interested La Lolla. She began taking photographs of places she went and people she knew and saw. Her career as a photographer soon became as important to her as her movie stardom. She branched off into sculpture and painting and proved a major talent in those fields also.

We were fortunate to catch an exhibition of her work - 250 photographs - at the Palazzo delle Esposizion. We had gone in to see the Bulgari exhibition that Laurent talked about earlier this week -40,000,000.00 euros worth of bling!!!! A pretty spectacular show but frankly I was more impressed by the Lollobrigida exhibition on the 2nd floor.

Her photos range from the exotic to the every day - from unknown natives in jungles to world famous celebrities. And in everyone she has something to say about the human condition or the world she saw around her. Some really remarkable stuff.

I did a search on the web to see if I could find a portfolio of some sort and attempted the url for the website given in the exhibition catalogue but it was inactive. The best I could do was a few scans from the catalogue published by Damiani. It was difficult to choose there were so many wonderful photos but here are a few examples of the remarkable photographic talent of Gina Lollobrigida.

Perhaps the most loving photos are those of Italy. There are so many that truly capture the spirit of the country including one where the entire population of Subiaco, the village where she was born, showed up for a "family photo". Above left: Finally the show begins! Above right: The Monks of San Miniato al Monte.

Old age in the Old World and the New. Above left: Waiting to go to church, Calabria. Above right: Waiting, Denver.

Caught unawares or posed she captures the essence of her famous subjects. The toughness of a Bette Davis or the chameleon face of Ralph Richardson.

She said it took her a week before she could bring herself to go into the streets of Calcutta to take photos. Most of them are not as romantic as the Tomato seller, she captured the poverty and squalor as well as the beauty.

My first thought was that these were two grandmothers - one in Manila, the other in Shanghai. But apparently the top photo is a mother - old before her time - and her child. Such a contrast between it and the child with the noddles -a photo that brought a smile of recognition to Laurent's face when he saw it.

As I said it was difficult to choose what to scan without doing the whole catalogue, I only wish it was available online so I could share it with you. She is a remarkable talent.

13 settembre - San Giovanni Crisostomo

Holiday Snaps - Bolzano - Duomo Di Maria Assunta

The architectural masterpiece in Bolzano is the glorious Gothic Cathedral off the Piazza Walther von der Vogelweide (I'm using the Italian names but everything here is displayed in both Italian and German.) Built as a basilica in the days of early Christianity to was rebuilt in the Romanesque style in 1180 and again in the 14th century in its present Gothic form.
It is best viewed from the piazza as on all other sides it is hemmed in by buildings from a later time. A fair bit of damage was done to it during the fierce fighting at the end of the Second World War and there has been extensive restoration and reconstruction. The filigree steeple was completed in 1517 and was the work of Hans Lutz von Schussenriedand. It's said that when it was first built the locals where afraid to ring the bells for fear it would topple.

Strangely its best exterior features - such as the side entrance and the two frescoes above from the School of Giotto - face onto the piazza. The second fresco is said to represent a pilgrim - recognizable by his walking stick, bag and the large money pouch on his belt (cynics say that you always needed a large money bag to visit Bolzano). The main entrance is rather nondescript and is guarded by the traditional - weather beaten - lions.
I found the high altar just a bit too baroque for my tastes but then I do tend towards the Gothic. There is something refreshing about soaring gothic arches, particularly after the glut of gilt and glorioled cherubs of the churches of Roma.
But the four side altars have some of the finest examples of 17th century carving I've ever seen. The four triptych represent Christ the King, The Baptizing of Christ, The Founding of the Duomo and Mary, Queen of Heaven. A right click on any of them will expand the centre panel.
I wasn't sure who this Saint is on the 3rd triptych - part of his iconography is a deer with the crucifix between its antlers. Anyone got any ideas?

Prior to his work on the steeple von Schussenriedand created the sandstone pulpit; though the scenes of the Doctors of the Church with the Four Evangelists on the panels are interesting I found the small figures that adorne it the most intriguing.
I am always captivated by the woodworkers art and there are two wonderful examples from entirely different eras on display in the Duomo. The confessionals show a heavy influence of Art Nouveau, while this saucy lion with the long tongue graces an old choir pew from an earlier time.

28 maggio - Sant'Emilio