Posts Tagged ‘Tintoretto’
“Immigrants, we get the job done”*…
When the Piccirilli Brothers arrived in New York from Italy in 1888, they brought with them skill, artistry, and passion for stone-carving unrivaled in the United States. At their studio at 467 East 142nd Street, in the Mott Haven Section of the Bronx, the brothers turned monumental slabs of marble into some of the nation’s recognizable icons, including the senate pediment of the US Capitol Building and the statue of Abraham Lincoln that sits resolutely in the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall.
The Piccirillis not only helped set our national narrative in stone but they also left an indelible mark on New York City. They carved hundreds of commissions around the five boroughs, including the 11 figures in the pediment of the New York Stock exchange, the “four continents” adorning the Customs House at Bowling Green, the two stately lions that guard the New York Public Library, both statues of George Washington for the Arch at Washington Square, and upwards of 500 individual carvings at Riverside Church…
The remarkable story of a remarkable family: “How six Italian immigrants from the South Bronx carved some of the nation’s most iconic sculptures.”
* Lin-Manuel Miranda (as Hamilton, to Lafayette in Hamilton)
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As we celebrate sculpture, we might wish a grateful Happy Birthday to another son of Italy, Galileo Galilei, the physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who, with Francis Bacon, pioneered the Scientific Method; he was born on this date in 1564. It was Galileo’s observations that gave conclusive support to Copernicus’ heliocentric theory of the solar system.
Eating like it’s your last meal…
A pair of scholarly siblings compared 52 artists’ renditions of “The Last Supper,” and found that the size of the meal painted had grown through the years. Over the last millennium they found that entrees had increased by 70%, bread by 23%, and plate size by 65.6%. Their findings were published in the International Journal of Obesity.
The apostles depicted during the Middle Ages appear to be the ascetics they are said to have been. But by 1498, when Leonardo da Vinci completed his masterpiece, the party was more lavishly fed. Almost a century later, the Mannerist painter Jacobo Tintoretto piled the food on the apostles’ plates still higher.
Read the LA Times story here. (Via Slashdot)
As we think twice about “super-sizing that,” we might recall that it was on this date in 1309 that Pope Clement V (best remembered perhaps for suppressing the Knights Templar, executing many of its members, and thus, securing the career of Dan Brown) excommunicated the City of Venice– all of it, every last resident. Indeed, he decreed that Venetian citizens captured abroad could be sold into slavery “like non-Christians.” He was a pawn of French King Philip IV; still…
Loving Godzilla, 17 syllables at a time…
From SamuraiFrog, an arresting (and very amusing) collection of Godzilla Haiku.
“Monsters are born too tall, too strong, too heavy, they are not evil by choice; that is their tragedy”
– Ishiro Honda (Kurosawa friend, Toho director, and creator of Godzilla)
Honda on the set of the original Godzilla
As we rethink our attraction to urban centers, we might compose a birthday rhyme for Torquato Tasso, the 16th Century Italian poet; he was born on this date in 1544. Though Tasso was a giant in his own time– he died in 1595, a few days before the Pope was to crown him “King of the Poets”– he had fallen out the core of the Western Canon by the end of the 19th century. Still, he resonates in the poems (Spencer, Milton, Byron), plays (Goethe), madrigals (Monteverdi), operas (Lully, Vivaldi, Handel, Haydn, Rossini, Dvorak) , and art work (Tintoretto, the Carracci, Guercino, Pietro da Cortona, Domenichino, Van Dyck, Poussin, Claude Lorrain, Tiepolo, Fragonard, Delacroix) that his life and work inspired.
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