Sunday, August 10, 2008

The Taking of The Taking of Christ?

The Taking of Christ was .....Taken





From Arts Gallery. net
8/2/08 ODESSA, UKRAINE - Caravaggio’s Taking of Christ, or the Kiss of Judas was stolen from the Museum of Western and Eastern Art in the Black Sea port of Odessa. Museum staff found that the work was missing from its frame. The thieves cut it from its frame. The museum was closed on the previous day, so the thieves could have stolen it from Tuesday evening. According to police, the thieves entered the museum through a window and bypassed the alarm system by removing a window pane instead of breaking it. After taking the work from its frame, the thieves fled through the roof. Vitaly Abramov, deputy head of the Odessa Art Museum, said, “This is a cultural catastrophe, a national tragedy. There is so little of art of such level in the former Soviet Union. You cannot put a price on this and I am not talking about money here. It is, in every sense, priceless.” "We came in here to find that the wind was blowing the blinds around through a window with no pane." Lyudmila Saulenko, the museum's deputy director told reporters.

INTERESTING....
here's another account:

[badly written] Article from cbcnews.ca

Caravaggio painting stolen in Ukraine
Last Updated: Friday, August 1, 2008 | 4:36 PM ET
Art officials in Ukraine are bemoaning the theft of a Caravaggio painting this week. The chiaroscuro work [sic believe it or not. chiaroscuro has been adjectivized!] alternately known as The Taking of Christ and The Kiss of Judas, was stolen some time between Tuesday night and early Thursday morning from a museum in Odessa. Authorities believe that the thief or thieves bypassed the outdated alarm system by removing panes of glass to enter the facility."The alarm did not go off because the windows had not been broken," Odessa police Chief Vladimir Bossenko told the Interfax news agency.According to a report from Reuters, museum staffers arrived at work on Thursday to discover the late-16th century painting had been removed from its frame.The museum was closed on Wednesday, so it is unknown exactly when the robbery took place.Vitaly Abramov, an executive at another Odessa art museum, called the theft "a cultural catastrophe" and "a national tragedy."The value of the painting is unknown, however a version of the same artwork hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland in DublinThough the authenticity of the painting has been questioned (it was considered a version by a student of Caravaggio's), a Soviet art expert declared in 1950 that the work was indeed one by the Italian Baroque master (for realz? i am skeptical).The painting, which depicts Jesus being dragged by soldiers after being kissed by his disciple Judas, underwent restoration in 2006.

and some hilarious comments on it:

8/1/08 Orwell wrote:
" Jonathan Carr's book, The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece, published in 2005, reveals by way of a detaile d journey through the provenance of that the original painting that "The Taking of Christ" (not a "version" as stated in the news story) is in fact the one in Dublin. The painting stolen from the museum in the Ukraine was either done by one of Caravaggio's students or is a copy/forgery, no matter what the unnamed Russian art expert of the 1950s may have claimed to the contrary. " "

8/8/08 Geez-Louise wrote: The author of "The Lost Painting" is actually Jonathan HARR.

Aha! .... ?


Both of these people seem a tad officious and pedantic, but it just cracks me up that a person chooses the name "Geez-Louise" and then USES CAPS . perhaps an over reaction? perhaps?

Anyway, I read Jonathan HARR's book a year or 2 ago, and it was pretty good and seemed pretty factually based (but I'm no expert on the C-man ... aka Caravaggio)

As wikipedia will tell you, the original Taking of Christ was thought to be lost for many years until an art historian happened upon it on a dusty wall in a house where Jesuit priests etc lived in Ireland. The painting was thought to be just some random bad copy of the infamous painting, but when removed from the wall and restored carefully and arduously it looked as though it could be the real deal. A huge amount of reasearch on the part of two grad students in italy corroborated its authenticity. The original now sits in the National Gallery of Art in Dublin. So, the painting that was stolen from the ukranian museum is now considered to be copy by one of C 's followers.


so this brings us to... the end of this subject for now. hopefully updates will be forthcoming?

-mademoiselle lyss
Il disengo del giorno / Picture of the day/ Le photo du jour/



worth1000.com

Saturday, August 9, 2008

Picture of the Day (Hilarity in the Early Ren)

The Betrayal of Judas by Giotto Arena Chapel, Padua. 1304-6

Looking at the evil thang on the left most end of the picture plane just fills me with glee. tehee.

also, crazy shit is going on with that little portico's perspective in the top right corner... who knew..? giotto's goin all uccello on our ass!

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

You Know You're an Art History Major and/or Obsessed with the Renaissance When....

1. you know how to spell Pollaiuolo without looking it up

2. you know it's St. John and not Mary Magdalene

3. You know how to say Pollaiuolo

4. when you have to correct people on the "parthenon", "pantheon", and "pantheon in paris"

5. you get way too excited by the 'fresco' button in photobucket

6. you know that Primavera wasn't always black (Green egg tempera doesn't age well.. duh..)

7.you know the names of random popes and their family trees

8. whenever you see a group of circular objects you automatically think: MEDICI

9.You know who Pollaiuolo is.

10. Venus may be beautiful on that shell but if you actually met her she'd look really wonky.

11. You hear a voice say "No Photo!" in the background of your mind constantly

12. You get really annoyed when people think 'duomo' is Italian for 'dome'

13. You wish tours would go into wayyyy more depth

14. When you're listening to one of those audio guides in a museum, you feel insulted.

15. After going to the Vatican, you now get excited when ever you see a pine cone

Sunday, August 3, 2008

"Oil is necessary and seductive and also dangerous" ! oh my!

I've always been totally intrigued by the colors in oil -unfortunately it means horrible things are happening- aughhh




I've always been totally intrigued by the colors in oil -unfortunately it means horrible things are happening!


a cool interview with an artist who uses actual oil in her art:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/01/AR2008080100220.html

some excerpts:

When you visit, what do you see if you can't get very close?

I wanted to know what the area smelled like. I want[ed] to know what the sky colors were. Previous cities I've visited with refineries, it's gray there every day. Yorktown had areas that were gray right around the refinery, but then the sky broke through blue.

But you can see when you go in the water around there [that] the water just isn't right. The colors are neon. There are people fishing in it, boating in it, and they have that marina right there. I wouldn't go swimming in it.

This [show] is putting the conversation out there. I am not protesting. That's why Western Refining will provide images, but there's an oil slick in the center of the room. It's that give-and-take -- get both groups of people in here, and we can discuss it.

and my new favorite word ever: BLOBJECTS

The Van Gogh Code

MYSTERIOUS PEASANT WOMAN!





links:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/08/04/hidden_van_gogh_found_at_mfa/


http://www.thebostonchannel.com/entertainment/13814403/detail.html#



bottanical study related to the ravine:

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Some Random Artsy Pictures from Italy and France (SRAPIF)






hey so i thought i might as well put up some (just a few though i went a little bit crazy and took MILLIONS) of photos i took during my semester abroad this jan-apr. so wohoo.
mostly of florence (where i was) some of la bella roma, et un peu des photos parisiennes...

to start off..

graffiti in una strada fiorentina (a random street in florence)
such crazy graffito all over!



then...






piazza della signoria (fl.) reflected in a window of a cafe (finestrino dell'cafe) pre-easter...
even the wrapping of the eggs is so aesthetically pleasing and done with such panache!

lord knows how many times i took pictures in the loggia dei lanzi (below)
but it is kinda one of my favorite places EVER!! the scupltures and the light and the benches and the view and all of it= magnificent!



above: Benvenuto Cellini's Perseus (holding the head of medusa) (left), The Rape of Polyxena by Pio Fedi (worked in 19th century) (right) , Palazzo Vecchio (behind)



different view of Polyxena



also a photo i found on wikicommons (didn't take it, nope) of it in ye olden days of c.1870's when they put it in the loggia


wohoo.
more later!