Tag: gallerie d’italia

Postcard from Vicenza, Italy: Art packs punchlines and metaphors

postcardsfromsanantonioLeave a comment

A brightly colored postage stamp depicting the architectural outline of a building with bold geometric shapes and vibrant colors, labeled 'ITALIA 800' for an event in Vicenza.

Above: Blogger’s unnecessary and intrusive fusion of Javier Jaen’s “Goya” banana (see below) with Francisco Goya’s “The Naked Maja.”

I have an interest in making things as immediate and easy to understand as possible…. It’s not always about how things look technically, but about what they say.”

Javier Jaen interviewed by Molly Long for Design Week, October 20, 2020

And artist/graphic designer Javier Jaen (1983-) succeeds in that immediacy. Without glimpsing the “Goya” title, anyone familiar with “The Naked Maja” by Francisco de Goya (1748-1828) would instantly recognize the banana as referencing it.

A large, artistic representation of a banana peeled and lying against a vibrant pink background.

“Goya” by Javier Jaen

Continue reading “Postcard from Vicenza, Italy: Art packs punchlines and metaphors” →

Postcard from Naples, Italy: Snippets shot in final four museums

postcardsfromsanantonioLeave a comment

Detail of “The Devil and the Holy Water,” Salvatore Postiglione, 1887, Gallerie d’Italia – Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano

Inartistically and illogically clumping works from four museums in this one post – 15th-century religious paintings, a Joan Miro retrospective, a house museum, contemporary art. The museums are getting short shrift in treatment because they are the final ones the blog will visit in Naples before moving across the boot of Italy. The grouping does offer a glimpse of how diverse and rich the art offerings found in Naples are.

Gallerie d’Italia – Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano
“Museum,” Paolo Vetri, 1875, Gallerie d’Italia – Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano
devilish detail, Museo Capodimonte
Museo Diego Aragona Pignatelli Cortes
Gallerie d’Italia – Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano
PAN – Palazzo delle Arti Napoli
Salottino di Porcellana, Museo Capodimonte
Joan Miro Exhibition, PAN – Palazzo delle Arti Napoli
Joan Miro Exhibition, PAN – Palazzo delle Arti Napoli
Museo Diego Aragona Pignatelli Cortes
Joan Miro Exhibition, PAN – Palazzo delle Arti Napoli
PAN – Palazzo delle Arti Napoli
Salottino di Porcellana, Museo Capodimonte
“San Michele Arcangelo,” 1490, Museo Capodimonte
Gallerie d’Ilalia – Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano
Museo Diego Aragona Pignatelli Cortes
“Shock Wave,” Mario Merz, 1987, Museo Capodimonte
Museo Capodimonte
Museo Diego Aragona Pignatelli Cortes
Joan Miro Exhibition, PAN – Palazzo delle Arti Napoli
Joan Miro Exhibition, PAN – Palazzo delle Arti Napoli
Joan Miro Exhibition, PAN – Palazzo delle Arti Napoli
PAN – Palazzo delle Arti Napoli
Gallerie d’Italia – Palazzo Zevallos Stigliano
Carriage House cat, Museo Diego Aragona Pignatelli Cortes
devilish detail, Museo Capodimonte
Museo Diego Aragona Pignatelli Cortes

As is oft the case, our camera lens seems to often focus on the devils lurking in religious art, but what dark thoughts were in the mind of Neapolitan painter Salvatore Postiglione when he conceived of “The Devil and the Holy Water” are unclear to me.

I never had thought of holy water as dangerous before. But, indeed in hindsight, it should have been obvious that the Coronavirus devil was lurking in fonts at the front of Catholic churches everywhere. Catholics always pause to dip their fingers in the communal pool of water and immediately raise them up to touch their face to make a gesture symbolizing the Holy Trinity and baptism.

March brought the draining of the fonts, but how many viral contaminants were shared by the faithful by then? So very, very sad to think of those who might have been harmed by turning to their religious rituals for reassuring comfort….