release life
Hatred paralyzes life, love releases it. Hatred confuses life, love... Read more →
On Images of The Prophet
The author explores images of the Prophet Muhammad through creating an historical and cultural timeline sourced from Islamic texts, book art, and paintings. I post this as a point of interest and insight to learn, not for debate. I am not a Muslim, I am not knowledgeable, I offer no opinion, no answers. I do have deep respect and […]
A Scandalous Makeover at Chartres
“Carried away by the splendors of the moment, I did not initially realize that something was very wrong. I had noticed the floor-to-ceiling scrim-covered scaffolding near the crossing of the nave and transepts, but had assumed it was routine maintenance. But my more attentive wife, the architectural historian Rosemarie Haag Bletter—who as a Columbia doctoral candidate took courses on Romanesque sculpture with the legendary Meyer Schapiro and Gothic architecture with the great medievalist Robert Branner—immediately noticed that large areas of the sanctuary’s deep gray limestone surface had been painted…”
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Chartres Cathedral Make-Work Scheme
“The belief that a heavy-duty reworking can allow us see the cathedral as its makers did is not only magical thinking but also a foolhardy concept that makes authentic artifacts look fake. To cite only one obvious solecism, the artificial lighting inside the present-day cathedral—which no one has suggested removing—already makes the interiors far brighter than they were during the Middle Ages, and thus we can be sure that the painted walls look nothing like they would have before the advent of electricity.”
“…the exact chemical components of the medieval pigments remain unknown. The original paint is thought to have flaked off within a few generations and not been replaced, so for most of the building’s eight-century history it has not been experienced with painted surfaces. The emerging color scheme now allows a direct, and deeply disheartening, before-and-after comparison.”
“Though little is specifically known about the church’s original appearance—despite small traces of pigment at many points throughout the interior stonework—the project’s leaders, apparently with the full support of the French state, have set out to do no less than repaint the entire interior in bright whites and garish colors that are intended to return the sanctuary to its medieval state.”
Michelangelo’s disintegrating frescoes
“Without having seen the Sistine Chapel one can form no appreciable idea of what one man is capable of achieving.” —Johann Wolfgang Goethe, 23 August 1787, The article, and title of this post, is below The Restoration of 1984-94 segment. It is about the current alarming state of the Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling. It is […]
Gojira
“Godzilla does not feel emotion…Godzilla is emotion” I imagine that you find this ridiculous. Far from it. This documentary from the BBC begins with the birth of the Godzilla phenomenon as an embodiment of the collective anxiety, helplessness and rage of the Japanese people after WWII. As they fell prey to the American atomic program in […]
Medieval Sephardic Music | performance
Medieval Jewish music of Spain. Beautiful. Exotic to our ears, ethereal and rhythmic. Above is a long playlist of 26 pieces of Spanish Sephardic music. The first performances are by “Ensemble Fontegara”. They are period pieces featured at the beginning of the playlist. I have not listened to the entire list, I love their work. It […]
Cha Qu 茶趣: How water affects the taste of tea
Chinese see everything in the world as a manifestation of either a male or female principle. For example, water is female, which means tea must be male. A funny thing is that when a boy chases or flirts with a girl, it is called “to brew – pao 泡” in Chinese. Well, if water is female, this means a […]
This Moment
“Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future. Live the actual moment. Only this moment is life.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh Thich Nhat Hanh Thich Nhat Hanh, now in his 88th year, is a gentle, humble monk […]
Whitman in color
A stunning piece. A colorized portrait of Walt Whitmanm. So well done, long surpassing the pink color of past works. Very life-like, especially the transparent blue of his eyes. by artist Dana Keller Related articles Colorized Photos That Bring Walt Whitman, Charlie Chaplin, Helen Keller & Mark Twain Back […]
