emily dickinson sent me a poem in my email. (she does so every M W and F.)

[duccio]

XX.

Could I but ride indefinite,
As doth the meadow-bee,
And visit only where I liked,
And no man visit me,

And flirt all day with buttercups,
And marry whom I may,
And dwell a little everywhere,
Or better, run away

With no police to follow,
Or chase me if I do,
Till I should jump peninsulas
To get away from you, --

I said, but just to be a bee
Upon a raft of air,
And row in nowhere all day long,
And anchor off the bar,--
What liberty! So captives deem
Who tight in dungeons are.


Emily Dickinson

Comments

[duccio]

P's woman has just suffered a devastating loss. You know this artist, huh? Wherever I go I always look up his works if I know they are around. I went especially to see this one, still hanging in the chapel for which it was made, in Florence.

[shinsetsu]

No, I cheeeeated! I right-clicked and viewed your image, and you had the artist's name on the url. :D

What loss did she suffer?

[duccio]

This is a detail from a painting called "The Deposition". It's a picture of the moment when the body of Christ is lowered to the ground. Although it is a late Renaissance work, it is actually kind of surreal in that no evidence of the cross is present. Instead of the usual Renaissance triangular stable composition, this is a triangle upside down, that seems about ready to topple over. The center of the composition is more or less a void, with the faces of the figures circling around this void in which only hands are seen. It's a very weird and fascinating painting with unusual colors and peculiar body proportions. It's really a sort of Pieta, recalling the famous Michelangelo sculpture in the Vatican.
1528 or so.

Here is a link.
http://www.haltadefinizione.com/magnifier.jsp?idopera=7
This site has an amazing zoom feature. It takes a moment to load. There are other paintings on this sight too. One of them is a painting by Caravaggio. If you zoom in on parts of the wineglass in that painting, you can actually see the minute self portrait of the artist's reflection - which is mind boggling.

[shinsetsu]

Ooh. Can you give me a link to that specific Caravaggio please? I got the first one to work for me. Thank you! :)

caravaggio

[duccio]

http://www.haltadefinizione.com/magnifier.jsp?idopera=14

Here it is, but it says you have to register and log in to make the zoom go to the max. It does not get to the magnification necessary to see the reflections I mentioned. To see the other items in their "collection", click on the button that says Torna alla Galleria. If you want to register, click where it says iscriviti in the upper right to open the sign-up thing.

It used not to have the sign-up thing. There are some interesting Italian 19th century paintings that they are featuring that it is cool to examine in detail - the things they used and the way they lived back then.

[shinsetsu]

Wait--I think I may have found it. The guy is sitting with a wine glass.

[shinsetsu]

Well, I see the painting, but it's not in that viewer. :/

[duccio]

Yes that is the one. Here is the link again
http://www.haltadefinizione.com/magnifier.jsp?idopera=14

I was wrong. The reflected self portrait is not on the glass, but on the glass vessel of wine in the lower left corner. You can see the bright highlight, and to the right of that, in the center of the beaker, just above the line of bubbles is the faint self portrait of Caravaggio. He was considered magical in his ability to create amazing reality... here is why.

[shinsetsu]

I'm not sure I saw the right one, but when I started looking for faces, I saw what could be several. O_O

[shinsetsu]

I got it! I emailed you. :)

[duccio]

Leonardo da Vinci wrote about that. He said he was laying on his bed in his room looking at some spots on the wall, and all of a sudden he saw faces everywhere. We've all been there, heh. On some occasions, with certain chemical aids, it's even more pronounced an effect.

The one I see is like I said, to the right of the highlight right in the middle of the vessel. It starts right above the bubbles and is within the area of the surface of the wine. Above the head, but below the rear line of bubbles there appears to be a horizontal crimson red brush mark which might be a swag of drapery that Caravaggio sometimes placed in his paintings. I notice that if I tilt my laptop screen forward the picture gets less dark, and the portrait in the wine bottle gets lighter and easier to see.

[shinsetsu]

Oh yes, I used to have fake marble in the bath tub, and there were a lot of faces in that. :)

I'd get a hernia if I tried to lift my monitor up to the window. :-p