What is a curator anyway, and what does she do?

May 2, 2018April 29, 2018 / get back, laurettadimmick / Leave a comment

I used to be an art museum curator, and often people would ask me what that was. Here is as good a definition as I’ve ever found:

The job of the curator has also changed. Today they are counted on for publicity appearances, special events, Web site management, interactive displays, programming, grant writing, and exhibition planning as never before, as well as the constant courting of potential patrons. There is little time left over for scholarly research or acquisitions. Loan requests from other museums are a constant workload on the curator’s desk, and while these help shore up goodwill in the interests of comparable loans from the borrowing institution.

The recent trend for the building of branch museums, such as the MFA’s in Nagoya, Japan, which opened in 1999, adds further pressures to the collection as a whole. Artworks are the museum’s ultimate “cash cow.” They are also the stars of the collection in the eyes of many visitors, who all too often cannot count on finding them on view because of the persistent demands for their appearances elsewhere. As box office attractions, special exhibitions rule the day. The greater number, and greater size, of museums in America also mean increasing competition for loans.

Rathbone, Belinda (2014-10-13). The Boston Raphael: A Mysterious Painting, an Embattled Museum in an Era of Change & A Daughter’s Search for the Truth (Kindle Locations 4204-4210). David R. Godine, Publisher. Kindle Edition.

A woman’s voice…better late than never: Zora Neale Hurston

May 2, 2018May 2, 2018 / get back, laurettadimmick / Leave a comment

Cudjo Lewis was getting old, and Zora Neale Hurston had something to prove.

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Hurston, pictured above, was the prolific African American author best known for “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” She was just starting her career in 1928 when she traveled down to Plateau, Ala., to meet with Lewis. The man was in his 80s. He was widely believed to be the last African man alive who had been kidnapped from his village, shackled in the cargo of a ship and forced into slavery in America. Hurston, competing with other anthropologists of the day, set out to document his life more thoroughly than the rest.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/05/02/zora-neale-hurston-87-years-after-she-wrote-of-the-last-black-cargo-the-book-is-being-published/?utm_term=.302e5008051e

A lost Leonardo painting becomes most expensive work of art ever sold.

May 1, 2018April 29, 2018 / get back, laurettadimmick / Leave a comment

The most expensive artwork ever sold?

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Leonardo da Vinci‘s Salvator Mundi was sold at Christie’s auction house last November for $450.3 million, making it the most expensive work of art ever sold.

But, not so long ago, an eagle-eyed buyer purchased it at auction for a mere £45.

How did we get from there to here? Here’s a handy timeline of the painting’s history below. You really can’t make this stuff up.

• 1500 – Around this time, Leonardo da Vinci paints Salvator Mundi, likely for King Louis XII of France and Anne of Brittany, shortly after the conquests of Milan and Genoa.

• 1625 – Believed to have been commissioned by the French Royal Family, the painting accompanies Queen Henrietty to England when she marries King Charles I.

• 1651 – King Charles I dies in 1649, and shortly thereafter the canvas is used to settle part of his massive debt. It covers a whopping £30 worth.

• 1763 – After remaining in the Royal family’s collection for years, the painting goes missing—and doesn’t surface again for 150 years.

• Late 19th century – The painting enters the collection of the Virginia-based Sir Frederick Cook.

• 1958 –Salvator Mundi pops up at a Sotheby’s London auction on June 25, 1958. Attributed to Boltraffio, who worked in da Vinci’s studio, it sells for £45 to someone named “Kuntz.”

• 2005 – The canvas surfaces again at an American estate sale. New York art dealer Alexander Parish purchases it for another bargain price of $10,000.

• 2013 – Having authenticated the work as a bona fide Leonardo, Parish and a consortium of fellow dealers sell it to “freeport king” Yves Bouvier in a private Sotheby’s sale for a cool $75-80 million. Later that year, Bouvier turns around and sells it for $127.5 million to the Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev.

• 2017 – Rybolovlev puts the painting up for sale at Christie’s. It fetches $450.3 million.

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-a-lost-leonardo-da-vinci-painting-went-from-69-to-450-million-2017-11?IR=T

Tempietto del Santo Sepolcro by Alberti

May 1, 2018April 29, 2018 / get back, laurettadimmick / Leave a comment

A little off the beaten path in Florence is a chapel with a beautiful funerary monument designed by the Renaissance architect, Leon Battista Alberti.

To get there, the first thing you need to do is to find the Piazza di San Pancrazio:

Once in the piazza, you will find the entrance to the Cappella Santo Sepolcro, otherwise called both the Cappella Rucellai or Tempietto del Santo Sepolcro. You enter the chapel of the Holy Sepulcher, which is the only remaining consecrated part of the former church of San Pancrazio.

Inside the Capella is this fine funerary monument, designed by Alberti, which houses the remains of Giovanni di Paolo Rucellai.

Rucellai was a wealthy Florentine merchant who was great friends with Alberti. Alberti, the architect and theorist of the Renaissance, created several important works for Rucellai, including Rucellai’s family palazzo (Palazzo Rucellai, started in 1447), the completion of the facade of Santa Maria Novella (from 1456) and the Loggia Rucellai, completed in 1460.

The monument Alberti designed for Rucellai’s tomb was located in the church closest to the family palace, the church of San Pancrazio. Scholars generally believe that the monument was begun in 1457 and finished in 1467. Ruccellai would live until 1481.

The tomb Alberti designed was inspired by the shape of the temple of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.

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Alberti reinterpreted that ancient structure in strictly Renaissance classical terms.

IW_LB-Alberti-Tempietto-del-S-Sepolcro_02 (1)

Rectangular in shape, with an apse-like shape extending from one wall, all of the walls are framed with fluted Corinthian pilasters and adorned with square panels with green and white inlaid marble.

An elegant inscription in finely wrought Roman lapidary characters, runs around the monument on the trebeation, with a verse from the New Testament Book of Mark.

A row of stylized Florentine lilies form the top adornment of the tomb, creating a kind of battlement. I’ve read that the lilies may refer to the Annunciation, to which the chapel was reputedly dedicated (the archangel Gabriel carries a white lily when he visits the Virgin Mary to announce the Incarnation (from Luke 1:26-38).

Atop the whole monument is a lantern, in the shape of a small temple on a circular base. Today the lantern is not in its original position: it was moved forward from the center during 19th-century restorations, to improve visibility.

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The interior is accessible by a low door, decorated with 2 frescoes by Giovanni da Piamonte, showing the dead Christ supported by 2 angels and another of the Resurrection. Giovanni da Piamonte was a pupil of Piero della Francesca. The actual sarcophagus is covered with a statue of Christ.

The inlaid marble decoration on the panels of the tomb’s exterior are varied and fascination and refer to the activities of Rucellai. They also draw from the Florentine Romanesque tradition of inlaid marble design, such as those found on the Baptistery of San Giovanni, the church of San Miniato al Monte, and the Badia Fiesolana.

The style of the white and green inlaid marble panels is restrained, geometric, and highly elegant, with no two exactly alike. We recall that according to Alberti, geometry induced a worshipper to meditate on the mysteries of faith.

On each of the four exterior walls, an inlaid panel of a heraldic emblem appears, referring to the most important contemporary personalities of the time. For example, in one panel, a stylized sail appears unfurled in the wind, with loose shrouds–presumably those of Giovanni Rucellai.

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Another heraldic panel uses the mazzocchio with 3 feathers (a type of male headwear worn in Western Europe during the Renaissance), which makes reference to Cosimo de Medici the Elder.

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The 3rd panel design depicts a diamond ring with 2 feathers, apparently this was the symbol of Piero de Medici.

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The final heraldic emblem reveals the symbol for Lorenzo il Magnifico, which is 3 intertwined rings.

Thanks to Wikipedia, we have a chart showing each of the inlaid panels. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempietto_del_Santo_Sepolcro

YHESVM QVERITIS N	AZARENVM CRVCIFIXVM SUR	REXIT NON EST HIC ECCE L	OCVS VBI POSVERVNT EVM

West wall

South wall

Apse east

North wall

Sun setting in Florence

April 30, 2018March 28, 2018 / get back, laurettadimmick / Leave a comment

Rose garden, Florence

April 29, 2018April 29, 2018 / get back, laurettadimmick / Leave a comment

If you are in Florence in the next 6 months, I recommend you pay a visit to Florence’s Rose Garden (Giardino delle rose), which is a garden park in the Oltrarno district of Florence, located between Viale Giuseppe Poggi, Via di San Salvatore al Monte and Via dei Bastioni and offers a commanding view of the city.

The garden is situated on the southern slopes of the Monte alle Croci, overlooking the Arno river and the historic district of Florence.

The Rose Garden was created by the Florentine architect Giuseppe Poggi in 1865, commissioned by the municipality of Florence to develop the left bank of the Arno River, when the capital of Italy was moved from Turin to Florence that year. Poggi’s contributions include both the Piazzale Michelangelo and the garden.

The Rose Garden is a terraced area of about 1 ha. Once part of the property of the Oratorian Fathers, the area was transformed into a garden by Attilio Pucci, who started the collection of roses.

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Villa Peyron, Fiesole

April 28, 2018March 26, 2018 / get back, laurettadimmick / Leave a comment

VILLA PEYRON

The villa, the formal garden and the vast park have a splendid location and enjoy a spectacular view over Florence. The place takes its name from a 16th century spring that flows in a thick wood uphill from the villa and which by gravity supplies the water necessary to work the many fountains in the garden and park.

It is likely that the villa itself was built on top of Etruscan ruins, traces of which can be seen in the underground chambers and the immediate surroundings for example in the cyclopean walls which rise in the park. It was however subjected to a series of renovations and transformations before architect Giovannozzi gave it its present day look in the early twentieth Century.

The garden is built on three terraces that slope southwards and has a wooded parterre parallel to the villa. Paolo Peyron was the creator of the lake and the architectural and monumental structure above it. The prestigious statues that decorate the garden in the place of those which were destroyed during World War II come from the Venetian villas of the Brenta.

http://www.fiesoleforyou.it/en/villa-peyron/

info: www.bardinipeyron.it

https://www.bardinipeyron.it/villa-giardino-peyron/

Signa, Italy and straw hats

April 27, 2018March 26, 2018 / get back, laurettadimmick / Leave a comment

Tip your hat to Signa

Signa is a comune (municipality) in the Province of Florence in the Italian region Tuscany, located about 12 kilometres (7 mi) west of Florence. As of 1 July 2013, it had a population of 19571 and an area of 18.8 square kilometres (7.3 sq mi).^[1]

The municipality of Signa contains the frazioni (subdivisions, mainly villages and hamlets) Colombaia, Lecore, Sant’Angelo a Lecore and San Mauro a Signa. Signa is a typical Tuscan town. On the day after Easter, there is an important religious festival in honour of the Beata Giovanna. There is a procession that parades in the streets of Signa, and many people wear old costumes.

In Giacomo Puccini‘s Gianni Schicchi, the “molini di Signa” (mills of Signa) are the most coveted by his relatives of Buoso Donati’s properties. The 1875 novel Signa by Ouida (Mary Louise Ramé) is set in Signa.

A quick survey of the Tuscan straw hat town

Opera fanatics may recall Signa’s role in the Giacomo Puccini-penned “Gianni Schicchi,” but Puccini superfans and Florence area residents aside, it remains relatively unknown.

Right at the junction of three key Tuscan rivers—the Arno, Bisenzio and Ombrone Pistoiese—it’s home to a longstanding craft tradition with inextricable ties to the land itself.

Dig into the territory and its top product with these tips.

The signature craft in town is undoubtedly the straw hat, known in Italian as the cappello di paglia and highlighted in the Domenico Michelacci Straw and Weaving Museum. The museum’s namesake, Domenico Michelacci, was an enterprising 18th century man who was among the first to depart from cultivating wheat strictly for dietary purposes: instead, he intentionally set his sights on straw to be used in weaving.

Michelacci worked specifically with grano marzuolo, set apart for its tiny grains and small ears. A watershed moment for the local economy, this change introduced by Michelacci ultimately led the Florentine area to become the West’s first area for high-quality straw hat production, piquing the attention of wealthy clients around the world.

Demands of clients have naturally shifted through the centuries, as have the fashions themselves, but the straw hat remains the icon of Signa. A visit to the museum will illustrate why: each room showcases important elements of this niche market and its role in local history.

Those most interested in the links to the land will enjoy perusing the different types of wheat on display, while the more aesthetically minded might prefer the plethora of hats spanning the early 20th century to the 1970s. An additional room focuses entirely on the various machines and tools used to manually work with straw (although this type of equipment is dispersed throughout the museum).

For more, see http://www.turismo.intoscana.it/allthingstuscany/aroundtuscany/florence-straw-hats/

La primavera, i fiori!

April 26, 2018 / get back, laurettadimmick / 1 Comment

OMG, I’ve been a garden designer, a master gardener, a docent at the Seattle Japanese Garden and so it is fair to say that I’ve been to a few plant sales!

But in all my years in many gardens, I’ve never been to a more beautiful, more inclusive, more accessible, and more affordable sale EVER!

Here are a few pix, I’ll be going back several times in the next few days!