Renaissance spring

Hazy early morning sunshine at the Botanical gardens in Padua - and these tiny spring flowers are VERY Renaissance.

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Pastels in Padua

On market stalls, in restaurants - and of course in the amazing frescoes.

Mosaics: the colours at St Mark's

St Mark's, Venice and the mosaics close up.
Here - samples of the colours used.

Terracotta at the Frari

A chilly afternoon despite the sunshine in Venice. At the Frari there are so many shades of terracotta. Famously in theTitian over the altar (the largest altarpiece in Venice). Here in these tulips and freesias too. And, of course, it's the colour of the marble underfoot - and of  the beams that seem to hold the church together.
Remember hearing Fiona Shaw talking about tthe Titian this time last year, just before Easter - The Testament of Mary was about to start at the Barbican.
Curiously then, like this year, I'd just been reading Carole Stone. This year it's The Celibate Season - an epistolary novel she wrote with Blanche Howard.
Very interested to read an article suggesting the origin of  'a celibate season' came from St Paul in a letter to the Corinthians; celibacy offers the chance for reflection and prayer, he says.
The few celibate people that I've known have been very wise - as if being removed from the hurly burly of passion offers the chance for deep thought.
But St Paul does advise against abstaining for long - 'that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency'.

Silk, Veronese and a street market

Wonderful to see Veronese's dazzling ceiling paintings of Saint Esther at San Sebastiano (VEroniese's parish church) in Venice.....the usual stormy skies and swirling rich fabrics.... then this heap of brocades in a nearby street stall....

 

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Snow on Trafalgar Square

Spring sunshine - at last.
Though inside the National Gallery there are lots of snow scenes at the Inventing Impressionism exhibition. Very exhilarating paintings and not really about winter at all - all that light is more about adventure and promise perhaps.

Fox Hill, Upper Norwood/Camille Pisarro

The Train in the Snow/Claude Monet

Lavacourt under Snow/Claude Monet

The Watering Place at Marly-le-Roi/Albert Sisley

Mother/daughter faux fur

So loved this pair sitting in front of me on the way home in the bus.
Mother (I think) and daughter, reunited - the daughter - with her yellow wheely suitcase (hidden) had clearly been away for a few days.
They laid their heads on each other's shoulders from time to time, both wearing lovely fur jackets - such a bond - such companionship and love.

Prep for a journey to Venice

Planning a trip to Venice in a couple of weeks - go almost annually now. Is this a pilgrimage? Is any journey made on a regular journey a pilgrimage? What is 'homage'?
Pilgrimages are not, of course, always religious.
Canaletto's paintings at the National Gallery take the breath away.

Later a friend gives me a book by Jan Morris on Carpaccio - which J.M. light-heartedly dismisses as a 'self indulgent caprice' but which really points to the depth of his paintings.
Great spring flowers here to lift the spirit: and an intense attention to detail, as in Canaletto.
Everything seen in a clear and bright light. A great metaphor for looking at life.

Poetry for the tube

White City tube station is not the most poetic place. But maybe there's always poetry in a journey

London Transport certainly thinks so.

Flowers at the dentist

Lots of journeys: one to a potential root canal appointment not the most pleasant.
Flowers in the dentist waiting room lift the spirits, I must say. Ill or tired: flowers are always good.

More about a Hinge Feast

Candlemas.. ..more about a 'hinge feast'. Love the idea of being at a mid point between Christmas and Easter -- birth and death.. .
From Lucy Winkett's sermon at St James's Piccadilly (these sermons are available to download from the church website - an amazing idea):

And today is a hinge day in the liturgical
year. With Simeon’s words to Mary
foreshadowing the tragedy of Jesus’s life,
we turn today from the cradle to the cross.

More spring flowers for the sick

What a miracle. The irises have come into bloom since Saturday.

Thinking back again to Padua, in March last year: there is, apparently, a 14th fresco in the Palazzo della Ragione of a spice shop a.k.a. pharmacy for the ailing.
There are cones for packing sales and albarelli - i.e. covered ceramic storage jars - for the spices.
It was closed when I went: a new pilgrimage is in order.
Apparently St Michael Archangel is sometimes depicted with a balance in medieval paintings of pharmacies, as his usual task is weighing souls in the balance - so he has a lot of practice of measuring things out  - mercy, though I suppose (not medicine).

Grape hyacinths and a hacking cough

Thank goodness spring flowers are exquisite. They make up for grey February. No better viewing for the flu-ridden than these grape hyacinths.

Sorting through photos from last year's visit to Padua remember the Botanical Gardens (the world's first) and cures for ailing pilgrims.

Mimosa and Mediterranean spring

No Mediterranean spring in Shepherds Bush this morning - and am laid up with a cough so not straying far from bed.
Even a small sprig of mimosa (pulled from a bush on Perrers Road) is enough to remember journeys to Italy and Spain just about now - first blossom and signs of spring.  Last Sunday - Candlemas - was a 'hinge feast'' in the liturgical calendar, half way between Christmas and Easter.

Below: Milan, March 2014.

An early morning conversation at Paddington Station

Getting off the sleeper in a daze - SO many journeys start and end at Paddington -  pass the soldier who never sleeps on Platform 1.
And to my astonishment see that he can now speak: this is a 'speaking statue'.

Despite the fact that it's 640am and they have been unable to serve tea on the train due to 'scheduling issues' - stop to listen.
It's very moving: I recommend it.
There's something poignant about this statue: I think it's because the soldier is caught in the moment, a letter in his hand, his head slightly bowed as he reads.
The other 'caught in the moment' work of art I can think of is Piero della Francesca's painting of Christ's baptism  - in the National Gallery.
Christ stands still and ready to be baptised but behind him - just at that very instant, a man is pulling his shirt over his head, crystallising the moment.

State of mind

Little colour in Warsaw this morning.

It's cold and grey. Not quite cold enough for real snow - just the occasional flurry. Everything has bleached to a green/grey/white.

So perfect to find a cafe where everything is red and plush. Love the contrast of the striped velvet chair back with the washed out rose print table cloth. Real roses in a glass on the table. It's still Christmas in Warsaw.

Rimbaud's Chanson de la plus haute tour

Par delicatesse
J'ai perdu ma vie.

Henry Cobb's colour photographs of Warsaw in ruins

Reading about the Warsaw Uprising (1944) in preparation for a trip to Poland - remember seeing Henry Cobb's colour photographs of Warsaw in ruins on display there a couple of years ago. It was a real jolt - a shock even - to realise that I thought of the past in black and white (not colour). The past is in colour, of course.  Henry Cobb was one of a party of young American architects who visited Europe in 1947 to view the extent of the devastation and consider reconstruction. The exhibition about this was astonishing. Background here.

 

Joan Didion and clothes for the journey

I've always loved Joan Didion's journalism and novels and thought her a bit of a role model.
So it was wonderful to hear yesterday that she is the new face of the fashion label Celine.

Joan Didion previously mentioned in this blog - here's her list of clothes packed for assignments....

Winter sun in Estonia

Great post from Winter Pilgrim  on walking through Estonia as the winter sun (only visible for a few hours of the day anyway) finally disappears. Love this description of arriving at her destination for the day:

"Lucky to be a woman pilgrim - when I finally arrived in the small village, the only lights I saw were from a beauty salon. Without hesitating, I walked on in. Within minutes, my feet were up, I was reclining on a comfortable chair, a cup of hot tea in hand and a platter of chocolate bonbons, chattering with the ladies there. Men pilgrims wouldn't likely venture into such a shop, but women take care of each other everywhere."

 A good excuse to find a snow scene - I love snow scenes. This one though by Monet is not quite right as it has the brilliant exhilaration of snow - the promise of a new, clean world. While Winter Pilgrim's post has the feel of light slipping away - a slow slide to the winter equinox.