Las Aventuras en el Abismo Estrecho

Adventures on the Narrow Straights:
an analysis of the stretched abyss

25.10.09

Nash

david

18.10.09

little notebook


is it art, or artlessness? 1964


another beautiful image. wingate paine's photography is a modern reinterpretation of the venus throughout history. is it possible to look at femininity as beauty without thinking of a woman as an object? is venus powerful?

11.10.09

7.10.09

Michelangelo's David

We were walking through the V&A last week, and Charlotte mentions that there is this Cast Court you really cannot miss of Medieval and Renaissance artwork.
She was right.
My lack of time in Europe (relatively) has also shortened the amount of exposure I have had with sculpture, particularly big, valuable, 500 year old sculpture.
They were remodeling the Italian Renaissance Cast Court and using it to restore pieces for the new Medieval and Renaissance wing, so we turned to walk into the one with the amazing Trajan column standing in the middle. We can look at the Renaissance court via the third floor (the ceilings run that high), but the big wooden planks blocking the view from the first floor disenchanted us with the idea of peering in.
But one sculpture from the Renaissance court looked over the vicious blockade preventing entry to this mystery court; and made me stand frozen in place. He's looking straight at me; as if I'm the Goliath he's considering defeating. I am defeated. Michelangelo's David, object of analysis and spectacle for centuries... I never realized he was so, well, big. His intense imposing stare seems to personify the insignificance that my art, my love of art, and my existence possess in comparison to regal masterpieces of this calibre.
I had to look away to keep from feeling emotional; I have chills running down my arms, in a frenzy I try to focus on something else to forget the majesty I have just not bowed down to. And it was only a cast of the original, a portrait of a king, a souvenir brought to England for people to admire. My idolatry runs deeper than I thought.

4.10.09

melting