Churches in Venice

Titian’s Assumption of the Virgin (the Assunta) is arguably the greatest Venetian painting in the world.* We’re lucky that we can see it in the church for which Titian painted it almost 500 years ago.

Born in the Dolomites, Tiziano Vecellio was sent to Venice to study art when he was 10 years old. He first studied in a mosaic workshop, then apprenticed to the Bellini family, and later studied and worked with Giorgione. Titian was still very young (in his 20’s) when he was commissioned to paint the Assunta for Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice’s enormous Franciscan church. It was a prestigious commission for any artist, especially a young one, but Titian wasn’t really in the position where he was still trying to prove himself. Bellini and Giorgione had both recently died, so Titian must have known that he was the greatest living artist in town and perhaps this gave him the confidence to do a painting unlike any ever done before.

One of the things that makes Venice so magical for me are all of the “right place, right time” and “kindness of strangers” experiences I have when I’m there.

I spent the first three days of my trip roaming around Castello, a sestiere I’d spent little time in on previous trips. I'd read about this Angel of Benediction sculpture and managed to find it with only a normal amount of difficulty (in other words, I was very lost and then all of a sudden, I saw the angel!). It’s in a residential area north of the Arsenale on a calle that’s named for it.

So I was standing there looking at it, and an elderly Venetian gentleman came along. He began talking to me and when I told him that I was American, he switched to excellent English.

“I’m glad you found our angel,” he said, and proceeded to tell me the story. The Venetians stole the angel from Anatolia in Eastern Turkey, he said, and a family named Rizzo put in on the archway above the entrance to a sotoportego, along with the reliefs on either side. They don’t show up well in my photos, but the reliefs are porcupines (or maybe hedgehogs?), which was the insignia of this family. The man showed me the family’s palazzo which is one of the oldest in Venice (13th c.) and told me that the way to identify the oldest buildings is to look at the chimneys (the round ones are older than the more common tulip-shaped ones).

The man also told me that when Napoleon conquered the Venetian Republic and began taking art away, many Venetians began hiding their art, and the Rizzo family bricked up their porcupines. Then the family left or forgot, and the porcupines weren’t unearthed until about a hundred years later when some repair work was done on the sotoportego. He told me that there’s probably other street art in Venice that’s bricked over and hasn’t been re-discovered yet. I love the thought of that!

I spent a very pleasant 10 minutes or so with this very nice man who took the time to give me a little tour of his neighborhood. You can’t plan stuff like this, you can only be grateful when it happens.

A recent Daily Telegraph article listed the writer’s choices for the 30 Best Things in Italy. Three of them are in Venice, and two of those three are church-related: Santa Maria dei Miracoli (the church as a whole) and the Bellini altarpiece in the Frari. The third thing is “Venice at midnight.” All great things, for sure, though I’d have a tough time narrowing my Best of Venice list down to only three.

The writer also offers an interesting fantasy game:

“It's an idle game, but one I'm often tempted to play in Italian churches: if you could walk off with one painting, which would it be? It's a tough one, especially in Venice, where you're not exactly short of options.”

Hmm. This IS a tough one. There are a few paintings that I really love but I’d feel horribly guilty about taking, just because they belong in Venice and nowhere else. The Madonna Nicopeia in Basilica di San Marco; Titian’s Assunta in the Frari; any of the Bellini altarpieces…as much as I love these, I’d have to leave them where they are.

I’d probably choose Vincenzo Catena’s Vision of Santa Christina in Santa Maria Mater Domini. Or perhaps Carpaccio’s St. George and the Dragon in San Giorgio Maggiore (since there’s another one of the same subject in San Giorgio degli Schiavoni).

Or Titian’s Annunciation in San Salvador. Or the Negroponte Madonna and Child Enthroned in San Francesco della Vigna. It’s a hard choice!

Anyone else want to play? You don’t have to limit yourself to Venice. What painting in any Italian church would you bring home?

We went to a big Southern folk art show last weekend and saw so much amazing and inspirational art. The best part was that all the artists were there too, and you could meet them and buy art directly from them.

I love art shows and will go look at anything, but these days there seems to be a lot of cynical and depressing modern art out there. Folk art is just the opposite – it’s innocent and much of it is hopeful and uplifting. Some of it is hilarious, and the sad works are poignant and moving rather than depressing.

Another name for folk art is “outsider” art – I’m not crazy about that term since it sounds kind of snobby. Self-taught or visionary art are better labels. One of my favorite museums in the world is the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore; it’s a branch of the Smithsonian that focuses on artists with vision and talent and inspiration, but no formal art training.

The Southern show had so much beautiful and/or funky art that I wanted to buy. I walked around the whole show twice trying to decide what I loved the most, and I ended up buying two paintings from an artist named Eric Legge.

And of course, one of them is a church! Not a church in Venice – this looks more like a church in the mountains of NC where I grew up. It’s beautiful. I’d never seen any work by Eric before; he’s a very nice young man and I really enjoyed meeting him. So when I got home I googled and found an interview with him with this incredibly wise quote:

“I don’t paint to sell. I sell so that I can paint.”

This nice pink animal was made by Clyde Jones, one of North Carolina’s most well-known folk artists. He calls his sculptures “critters,” and his home, Critter Crossing, is listed on Roadside America: Guide to Off-Beat Tourist Attractions. You can see his critters all over this area, in restaurants and in other people’s yards. I like his work a lot.

A few years ago, Clyde had a show at the NC Museum of Art in Raleigh, and there were about 50 of his critters in the woods behind the museum. I took my nephew (who was about 3 years old at the time) and we had a blast – it was completely magical to hike through the woods and see all these crazy colorful animals spread out over several acres of forest.

Clyde is a character and is known for being quirky about selling his art. Sometimes he will, mostly he won’t, and sometimes he just gives it away, especially to children. The most famous story is when he refused to sell a piece to Mikhail Baryshnikov who was in the area for a performance and went out to Clyde’s house to see the art. Clyde does lots of presentations in local schools and at the art show last weekend, he was in his booth surrounded by a bunch of happy kids. More photos below.

This painting by Paolo Veneziano is in the Chapter Hall of the Frari. From the main sanctuary, walk through the Sacristy (where the great Bellini altarpiece is) and into this Hall which has windows overlooking the former monastery’s cloisters. The painting is over the funeral monument for Doge Francesco Dandolo and shows the Doge and his wife being presented to the Virgin and Child by Saints Francis and Elizabeth. The Christ Child’s hand is raised, blessing the Doge. Painted in 1339, this is probably the first portrait of a Doge that was painted from real life and also might be the oldest painting in Venice that remains “in situ” (in the place for which the artist painted it).

Paolo Veneziano (Paul the Venetian) isn’t the first Venetian artist but he’s the first with a name and a recognizable style. Before him, there were a number of anonymous artists making mosaics, and painting frescoes and icons. He lived from 1290-1362 and was a contemporary of the Tuscan artist Giotto who revolutionized painting a few miles away in Padua.

Paolo’s paintings are colorful with lots of gold and brocade and show elements of both the older Byzantine and the emerging Gothic styles. He was one of the first artists in Venice to paint on panel and make altarpieces and polyptychs instead of painting frescoes right on the church walls. He painted lots of "Madonna and Childs" and "Virgins Enthroneds" as well as crucifixions on panels in the shape of a cross.

At the bottom of my photo, there are two busts, and every time I go back to this Chapter Hall, I do a double take when I see the bust on the right because it looks so much like JFK! It’s not though – it’s San Pio X who was Patriarch of Venice from 1893-1903 and then Pope from 1903-1914. He became a saint in 1954 and was the first pope to be canonized since the 17th century. He’s quite loved in Venice and you see his image all over the churches there, but it’s only this Frari bust that looks like JFK.

A couple of other quirky resemblances in the Frari. Gary Wills, author of Venice: Lion City, noted that the Saint Dominic in the Bellini painting looks like Sean Connery (and he does!). And the Time Out guidebook points out that the lion on Canova’s tomb looks just like the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz (and it does!). Check them out next time you're in the Frari.

St. Luke (San Luca) is the patron saint of artists because supposedly he was a painter himself. Legend has it that he painted a portrait of Mary from life, with her actually sitting there, making it the equivalent of a photograph, I guess. Some versions of the legend say that he did the painting on a wooden table top that Joseph and Jesus had made. The story goes that Mary infused the painting with her blessings and grace, turning it into a miracle-working icon that would carry her power across the centuries.

Now I’m not sure if Luke did one painting of her or many, but there are churches all over the globe that claim to have a St. Luke painting of the Madonna, and these images have been revered for hundreds of years with lots of stories about miracles, healings, and deliverance from wars and disease. In the Middle Ages, people made pilgrimages to visit these paintings which were just as venerated as the relics of any saint.

Well, Venice has not one but three icons that were supposedly painted by St. Luke. One is the Madonna Nikopeia in the Basilica di San Marco (that’s her in the photo above), the second is the Madonna de Pace icon in San Zanipolo, and the third is the Virgin Mesopanditissa icon on the high altar of Santa Maria della Salute.

Earlier this summer, Maria I posted some beautiful photos of El Viejo San Juan (Old San Juan) in Puerto Rico. I told her that I’d spent one day in Old San Juan many years ago when I was on a cruise that stopped there. I fell in love with the place, and I’ve always intended to go back some day. I also told Maria about two lithographs I bought in Old San Juan - the subject matter of both of them is The Three Kings (aka the Three Wise Men).

Maria said, “The Three Kings are iconic in Puerto Rico. It's part of our cultural heritage and January 6 is a big holiday on the island.” So I took some photos so I could show her my art from Old San Juan.

A quick Google search turned up some cool info about “Dia de los Reyes” or Three King’s Day. In Puerto Rico, it’s the Three Kings who bring gifts to the children and the gifts don’t come on Christmas Day, they come on January 6 which is around the time that the Kings arrived in Bethlehem. This day is also known as Epiphany.

On January 5, children in Puerto Rico put out grass for the Kings’ camels instead of putting out cookies for Santa (I love that!).

The experiential test of whether this art is great or good, or minor or abysmal, is the effect it has on your own sense of the world and of yourself. Great art changes you. – Sister Wendy Beckett

The inspiration for this blog entry came from a discussion in the comments over at SandraC’s blog that made me want to introduce Sister Wendy to anyone who hasn't "met" her yet! “Sister Wendy’s Story of Painting” is a BBC series that I watched on PBS when it was first shown in the 1990’s and then I bought the videotapes so I could watch it again and again. It's such an awesome series. Sister Wendy is one of my heroes because she talks about art from her heart and from the perspective of the bigger picture (why art is important, how art can enrich our lives). She's such a fascinating woman and a great teacher.

But what an unlikely TV personality she is! Sister Wendy lives a “contemplative life” of complete seclusion and prayer in a little trailer on the grounds of a monastery in the U.K. She became a nun at age 16, went to university and taught for a while, and then in 1970 at age 40, she went into seclusion. A contemplative life includes two hours of work a day, and Sister Wendy’s work for several decades was studying art on her own. She published a few articles and somehow was discovered by the BBC who took her on the road all over Europe (and later, America) to make these wonderful shows.

She’s an amazingly free thinker (for a nun!), a great storyteller, and she can be very funny and surprising. One thing that makes the series so powerful, I think, is the fact that she’s such an art lover and when they were filming her, she was seeing many of her favorite paintings for the first time in person, and you can tell that she’s very moved at times.

This week's PhotoHunt theme is "road."

These are photos from a road trip I took to a charming Roadside Attraction in Prospect Hill, NC.

This miniature stone village was built by North Carolina farmer Henry L. Warren (1883-1978) with help from his neighbor Junius Pennix. The village consists of 27 small buildings that include a church, a hospital, a hotel, and a mill with a waterwheel. Mr. Warren named his little village Shangri-la.

Mr. Warren began building Shangri-la in 1968 when he was 75 years old and worked on it for the next nine years until he died at age 84. The village is made of white quartz and other stone that Mr. Warren found on his farmland. I love this place so much! Happy weekend to all.

The road by Shangri-la:

More photos below:

I found this sweet story in E.V. Lucas’ A Wanderer in Venice (published in 1914), and since it combines three of my favorite things (churches, cats, and art), I had to share it on the blog.

In his story, Lucas was sitting in front of Titian’s Pesaro Altarpiece in the church of the Frari (Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari).

As I sat one day looking at this picture, a small grey and white cat sprang on my knee from nowhere and immediately sank into a profound slumber from which I hesitated to wake it. Such ingratiating acts are not common in Venice, where animals are scarce and all dogs must be muzzled.

Six months later the same cat led me to a courtyard opposite the Sacristy door and proudly exhibited three kittens.

Sigh. I haven’t met any cats or kittens during my many visits to the Frari, but I have read that in the former monastery next door (now the Venetian Archives), there’s a much loved colony of cats who keep the mice from nibbling away all the ancient documents of the Republic.

Here's the painting Lucas was looking at when the kitty jumped in his lap.