Posted by feitheachd on Sat 15 Aug 09, 4:58 PM to feitheachd's blog.
These days I find art galleries overwhelming and so, when there is one that I am fortunate enough to be able to visit regularly (and when there is free admission), I tend to concentrate on really *seeing* just one or two paintings.
I don't plan, I select a room at random, let my eyes wander and where they rest, that's where they stay for half an hour or so. Today divine intervention was being ironic and I was stuck with Pietro Orioli's The Virgin and Child with Saints. Yes, that's *Saints* a whole, whatever the collective noun for Saints is – a piousness? We have Jerome, Bernardino, Catherine of Alexandria and Francis.
I know I'm not being very original here, but, what struck me more than anything as I gazed and gazed, was the unadulterated glumness of the thing. I could almost feel the joy instilled by the antics on the Fourth Plinth being drained from my soul.
And this represents the aspirational propaganda of the Middle Ages – staunch forbearance, piety, heart curdling self loathing, the withdrawal from life and living; pushing the notion to the masses, that the smug martyrdom of self sacrifice was a direct route to godliness.
Now, I don't have a lot of time for the empty yearnings of Generation Y, but please give me glamour before dreicht gloom; unashamed greed before pernickety penitence; cruel lust before faux purity and a kick up the arse if I ever display symptoms of self-righteousness.
Edited Sat 15 Aug 09, 10:31 PM by feitheachd
| 15 Aug 09, 5:48 PM MarcusStrapp UK(CB), 7 yrs  |
I reckon you have got to go a long way to beat this But hey ho, you can always go around the corner and pick up some happy pills
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| 15 Aug 09, 10:41 PM feitheachd 6 yrs |
Nice composition. I like the shadow, the stance, the line on the floor. And I can understand why the viewer is enthralled – the black canvas is like a mirror, it challenges rather than offering an explanation; I'd rather that than be lead by the ear. Did you get a chance to visit Montserrat? "Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be, and he will become as he can and should be." ::Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:: |
| 16 Aug 09, 12:50 AM MarcusStrapp UK(CB), 7 yrs |
No this time around though I have been there a few years ago. My daughter visited Montserrat with the school just a a few weeks ago and loved it.
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