Hello! It’s been a while… over a month, bizarrely enough, although I can’t tell whether time is going quickly or slowly. The time has been filled with numerous adventures, I’m glad to say, including two trips to Venice, one working, one holiday, and both a joy! I’ve also managed to take in a number ofContinue reading “113 – Artemisia, and Mary.”
Category Archives: Virgin Mary
112 …and so, ‘Farewell’…
Giotto, The Scrovegni Chapel, c. 1305, Padua. This is it, the very last ‘Scrovegni Saturday’. When I started out on this strand I had no idea what was coming, but I feel I understand Giotto’s decoration far better than I did before – and inevitably I also have far more questions about it than previously!Continue reading “112 …and so, ‘Farewell’…”
111 – Full circle
Giotto, Pentecost, c. 1305, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua. One last image for Scrovegni Saturday before a final summing up next week: Pentecost, in which God hands over responsibility to man, and Giotto remains entirely human, and entirely poetic. I have covered the story before – twice, in fact: on the day itself, with Plautilla Nelli’s littleContinue reading “111 – Full circle”
110 – The Ascension
Giotto, The Ascension of Christ, c. 1305, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua. Welcome back to Scrovegni Saturday – and I mean the Saturday bit specifically! Having said that, I think there are only two more to go. One next week (or the week after, to be honest), to look at the final image, and a ‘coda’ toContinue reading “110 – The Ascension”
109 – Death and Resurrection
Giotto, The Lamentation over the Dead Christ and The Resurrection, c. 1305, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua. I know – the whole idea of ‘Scrovegni Saturday’ was blown apart weeks back when I first failed to hit the deadline, but never before have I been early. So welcome to the first, and presumably only, ‘Scrovegni Friday’. I’mContinue reading “109 – Death and Resurrection”
108 – The Crucifixion
Giotto, The Road to Calvary and The Crucifixion, c. 1305, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua. And so we begin the final chapter in the epic that is the Scrovegni Chapel, and to give you a better sense of where we are, I have found an image of the whole of the North Wall – clearly taken fromContinue reading “108 – The Crucifixion”
Day 99 – Paradise
Giovanni di Paolo, Paradise, 1445, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Since yesterday, nothing drastic has happened – and so I give you a vision of Paradise, the rabbits, more numerous since the days of Adam and Eve, still nibbling peaceably at the grass. I don’t know about you, but back in the middle of March IContinue reading “Day 99 – Paradise”
Day 98 – Out of Eden
Giovanni di Paolo, The Creation of the World and the Expulsion from Paradise, 1445, Metropolitain Museum of Art, New York. I alluded yesterday (Picture Of The Day 97) to the medieval conception of the Universe, in relation to the tapestries across the top of the walls in the tower of The Lady of Shalott – so what betterContinue reading “Day 98 – Out of Eden”
Day 97 – The Mirror Crack’d
William Holman Hunt, The Lady of Shalott, 1886-1905, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford CT. Finally, after 97 days, I’ve found the perfect expression of the lockdown. I’m beginning to understand how this Lady feels. I suspect we’ve all been going through this for a while now – “I am half sick of shadows,” said the Lady of Shalott.Continue reading “Day 97 – The Mirror Crack’d”
Day 93 – A Baptism and a Wedding
Giotto, The Baptism and The Wedding at Cana, c. 1305, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua. Bother. Oh bother. I hate it when I get things wrong. Last week I said that we would start today with The Baptism of Christ, saying that it was opposite Christ among the Doctors. But it isn’t, it’s next to it. Here is the opened-up scale model ofContinue reading “Day 93 – A Baptism and a Wedding”
