September 28th, 2016

STRANGE SHORE: Rome

SUNDRY LAND: Italy

WANDERING WAY: Art Excursions in Rome (@ Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, St. Peter’s Basilica, and Musei Vaticani) along with an encomium of the coolest neighborhood in Rome, Trastevere.

For four days, I strolled through sunny(?!) London trying to remember not to say, “Grazie!” whenever someone handed me morning coffee or evening wine. After two weeks in Rome, it seems perfectly natural to give a hearty “Grazie!” Londoners find it a bit odd, particularly since I’m an American Anglophone.

Before I spend too much more time soaking up the unexpected sunshine of September in Madrid --I've already changed cities twice! -- I bring great news of the beatific art in Rome. I’ll begin with a brief excursus into the glorious collections of the Galleria Doria Pamphilj and Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna before taking you on a guided tour through the ENTIRE Vatican: Dome, Basilica, Treasury, and Museum – it took me six stout hours, in which I never lost my nerve despite the thousands of pilgrims pushing and shoving me every which way. I’m still a little exhausted after the ordeal, but I feel as if my journey must’ve been blessèd – not even one toe was squashed.

Galleria Doria Pamphilj (http://www.doriapamphilj.it/roma/en/):

Elizabeth and I had a grand time listening to the audio guide as the heir of the Doria Pamphilj family related the tale of roller skating through this room:

Well, gosh. Some childhoods are different from others, aren’t they? Happily, in the 1990s, the family realized that it could pay for restorations if it opened up their renaissance palace and its inestimable art holdings to the rest of the roller skating public. Aren’t we lucky? The enormous collection contains so many jewels, and one almost gets the sense that Caravaggio intended people to see his paintings.*

*No, Galleria Doria Pamphilj does NOT let visitors roller skate, which really isn’t very sporting.

(Good going, Steve Martin!)

Before I touch on the unmissable Caravaggios, take a look at Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s “Battle in the Bay of Naples”(http://www.doriapamphilj.it/roma/en/i-capolavori-doria-pamphilj/pieter-brueghel-detto-il-vecchio/):

Besides my everlasting love for Pieter Brueghel the Elder, this painting contains a three fascinating mysteries:

1.Why did Pieter Brueghel the Elder bother to paint a fictional sea battle?

There are any number of real-life sea battles he could’ve painted, but Brueghel opted to make up one. Here’s a short list of the perfectly legitimate sea battles that occurred in the mid-sixteenth century, leading up to Brueghel’s sojourn in Italy (Rome, Calabria, and Sicily) in 1552:

-1529: Ottoman Turks under Khair-ad-Din (Barbarossa) defeat Spanish

-1538: September 28 Preveza - Ottoman Turk fleet under Khair-ad-Din defeats Spanish-Venetian-Papal fleet

           -1552: Ponza - Ottoman Turks under Sinan Pasha defeat Genoese under Andrea DORIA [emphasis mine] off western Italy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_naval_battles#16th_century & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ponza_(1552))

See! Lots of sea battles! However, you’ll notice that in each battle, the Ottoman Empire totally wipes the sea floor with the European fleets, a fact that offers some insight into why a visiting Netherlandish painter might invent a battle for an Italian buyer, who might like to imagine that a Neapolitan/Italian fleet could beat the Ottoman Turks...as if the Turks hadn’t completely defeated a Genoese fleet commanded by Admiral Andrea Doria, one of the most famous members of the Doria-Pamphilj family, that same year in 1552.

Uh huh. The painting is a convenient piece of historical revisionism, isn’t it? 

The Italians (more particularly, the totally badass Venetians) didn’t defeat the Turks until 1571 at the Battle of Lepanto in the FOURTH Ottoman-Venetian War (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman–Venetian_Wars). Look how long the Ottomans dominated the Eastern Mediterranean! 

2. Did Pieter Brueghel the Elder ever visit Naples?

The curator on the audio guide was totally perplexed. First, she pointed out the obvious – it doesn’t really look like the Port of Naples. Then again, Brueghel renders an amazingly accurate portrait of the surrounding Neapolitan countryside. In light of these facts, the curator hedged her bets by guessing that Brueghel probably visited Naples. Maybe. (To me, it’s looks more and more like Brueghel had found a wealthy buyer with Neapolitan connections…)

3. Why wasn’t Pieter Brueghel the Elder influenced by Italian art…at all?

In a disappointed tone of disbelief, the curator noted that Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s style DID NOT CHANGE in reaction to soaking up Italian culture. Even as she praised the imaginary and realistic details of this painting, she questioned if Brueghel really did visit Italy. Why wasn’t the painter so stunned by Roman culture to change his entire way of viewing the world? The painting looks so very Flemish. Did I detect a sigh across the filmy recording of the audio guide? Ha!

The poor curator’s flummoxed disbelief that Pieter Brueghel the Elder could’ve continued painting like a Netherlandish painter even after visiting Italy brings me to a key point.

How much does Italy change a person?

For myself, I’m venturing into my future life with an infinitely superior wardrobe, but you’ll all have to tell me if you detect slight Latinate and Romanesque inflections in my everyday manner of expression. How could I, Sharon Fulton, persist in behaving, writing, and discoursing like an American after being exposed to the wonders of Rome? Hmmmmm…

Well, I have learned that it's important to look up from my iPhone! Occasionally. 

In Caravaggio's "Repentant Mary Magdalene," 1595 (http://www.doriapamphilj.it/roma/en/i-capolavori-doria-pamphilj/michelangelo-merisi-detto-il-caravaggio/), a repentant sinner may weep a tender tear of regret, but her skin still glows in the full flush of youth. Moreover, post-bedhead hair drifts fetchingly even as she wears the latest fashion-stylings...for Roman prostitutes. 

In dressing Mary Magdalene in garb associated with prostitution in sixteenth-century Rome, the young Caravaggio alienated several patrons. As a result, the Doria Pamphilj family bought this oil at a bargain-basement price, and contemporary visitors have the opportunity to see Biblical history interpreted by a painter fascinated by his own sixteenth-century world. None of the reproductions of this painting (that I've seen in any case) capture the way light illuminates Caravaggio's colors, which emphasize the fleshy bloom that stands in counterpoint to the sitter's sadness. Does the painting's physical beauty negate its purported message about the dangers of earthy delights? Is there an inherent paradox in an exquisite object warning against transient pleasure? The painting's formal magnificence and its miserable subject diverge, creating a philosophical conundrum for the viewer: "Can I appreciate the gorgeousness of this Magdalene and still sympathize with the desolation that gorgeousness wreaks?" 

One looks; one feels; and one wonders at Caravaggio's gutsiness in dressing this same model as the Magdalene and the Virgin -- the Doria Pamphilj encourages these reflections by exhibiting "Repentant Mary Magdalene" and "Rest on the Flight into Egypt" (1597) side by side.

Against expectations, Mary Magdalene's repentance and the Virgin Mary's motherly tenderness are affected by the same model in similar poses, suggesting that the great trials and triumphs of human experience may be endured/accomplished by the same person...if a willing painter tweaks the narrative context.

Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, "Roma Anni Trenta: La Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Le Quadriennali d'Arte, 1931 - 1935 - 1939"(http://en.galleriaartemodernaroma.it/mostre_ed_eventi/mostre/roma_anni_trenta_la_galleria_d_arte_moderna_e_le_quadriennali_d_arte_1931_1935_1939):

My most devoted readers will have noticed that I adore art from 1870s - 1920s, and so when I discovered a Roman art exhibition that covered Italian art throughout the 1930s, I thought, "Why not? Despite their ideological hooey, I like the Italian Futurists." Like most Americans, I'm a little wary of European cultural movements leading up to the carnage of WWII, but the recent Guggenheim exhibit, "Italian Futurism, 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe" (https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/italian-futurism-1909-1944-reconstructing-the-universe) gave me new appreciation for the Futurists' aesthetic productions if not the Futurists' proto-Facist philosophical leanings. 

As I've so often found, "Why not?" leads one down wonderful pathways. In this case, I discovered the active artistic communities painting in all sorts of styles everywhere in Italy, grasping towards graphic innovation before creativity was undercut by the war. Even though Futurism is the most famous artistic movement of the Italian 1930s, there's so much more! Post-Impressionists galore!

My two favorite pieces drew upon traditional subjects even if they were painted in the post-Impressionist style. In Alberto Salietti's "Head of a Girl (1930)," the artist renders a classic portrait into a modernist painting with the loose brushwork and palette of a latter-day Cézanne:

Salietti even captures the disenchanted gaze that identified Madame Cézanne as a palpable force from painting to painting to painting:

Like Cézanne, Salietti presents an abstracted chair, and the background keeps the focus on the sitter. In the Italian piece however, it's possible to detect the influence of Greco-Roman statuary in the profile and poise of the young girl:

The painting is stunning on its own, but it's equally as fascinating in registering the admixture of old themes and modern techniques. 

As someone who's spent three months gallivanting around Europe, Gianfillipo Usellini's modernistic take on the parable of "The Prodigal Son (1935)" fires the imagination as I entertain almost-inevitable visions of my family slaughtering the fatted calf to welcome my return. (I can only hope that someone's had the foresight to purchase an appropriately chunky calf in my absence...and an electric cattle prod, too.) 

You can almost hear the bedraggled "prodigal" yelling "Papa!" in a thick Italian accent as the family dog yaps with joy. But that dog! Even if Usellini was the artist, it still looks like Henri Rousseau was having an Italian vacation, dragging along the primitivist puppy on holiday. For comparison, check out "The Sleeping Gypsy (1897)" by Rousseau:

Despite one of the happiest (and most peculiar-looking) dogs in art history, Usellini's piece will never be my favorite reinterpretation of "The Prodigal Son" -- that honor goes to the naughty, fabulous, and deeply Orientalist cycle "The Prodigal Son in Modern Life (1880)," as imagined by James Tissot:

Although Usellini's stark version doesn't depict any of zany and highly-racist hijinks of the prodigal (sigh), it still provides hilarious details about the homecoming. First, look closely at the returning son -- he's coming from a world where a modern trolley rattles in the background, suggesting that the technological "today" of 1935 is a handy symbol for the parable's sinful swine pen. Moreover, the surrealistic foyer symbolizes the moral distance that the son and father (and dog) have to cross in order to reconcile. That's all well and good (and deeply indebted to Giorgio de Chirico (http://www.creativeboom.com/inspiration/famous-italian-artists-proto-surrealist-paintings-come-to-life-with-clever-animation/), but the most engaging figure is the "good son" hanging back and looking deeply pissed. Zoom on the good son's look emoting, "Are you kidding me? Really?" His disbelieving skepticism brings the painting into a world where a modern and detached observer might think, "The prodigal son? Really? Are we really still doing this? Really?" 

The Vatican (http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/MV_Home.html):

Now! The moment that you’ve all be waiting for! The Vatican! (At the very least, I know that my mother and her friends have been waiting for this moment with bated breath.) No, I did not have an audience with Pope Francis; apparently, he had to do important things like canonize Mother Teresa. So yeah, he didn’t make any time to see me. Ahem. I suppose sainting Mother Teresa is important, too (http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/04/europe/mother-teresa-canonization/).

My trip to the Vatican began two days early as I found that the Vatican website definitely DID NOT WANT TO SELL ME ADVANCED TICKETS, which everyone assured me were absolutely necessary to getting in the door (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_door). Even as I wondered why the Roman Catholic Church couldn’t manage to hire any halfway-decent computer scientists to clean up its buggy website, I consoled myself with the thought that if I were meant to visit the Vatican, some higher power would make it so.

My faith was not misplaced! Applying an important (yet admittedly secular) dictate that has sped my journey throughout Europe (i.e. “The early bird gets the worm”), I woke at 7am in time to arrive at the Vatican long before the merry bands of pilgrims found their way to its bustling, sunlit courtyards.

Having no sense of direction occasionally benefits the wayward wanderer – instead of making my way to the Musei Vaticani as I’d intended, I found myself at the ticket booth to the Vatican Dome. This ticket counter (unlike any other counter in the Vatican) had a signal advantage – no line whatsoever. Without any sense of my unbelievable luck, I strolled up to the smiling (and quite unclerical) ticket seller to say, “Hi! I’d like a ticket to the museum, please!”

He looked at me as if I were a neophyte from another, better, happier planet where people don’t wait in lines for three hours and laughed, “Miss, you have two options: A general ticket or a more expensive timed ticket where you don’t wait in line.”

The words, “WHERE YOU DON’T WAIT IN LINE,” send a jolt of joy to my very soul; consequently, I replied, “Oh, I’ll take the timed ticket, then!”

He looked at me with concern, as if the extra nine Euros might send me straight to the poor house. (The holy atmosphere of the Vatican must inspire charitable feelings, even in ticket sellers.)

He asked, “Are you sure?”

I replied, “Yes?” Then, I rallied my senses and offered a firm, “Yes. Thank you. Grazie.”

After being given this decisive affirmative, the ticket seller relaxed and said, “No. Don’t take the 9:30 ticket. The basilica and dome will take at least two hours, and you’ll want to see them. TAKE THE 10:45 TICKET.”

(Another important lesson from my travels: If a local advises something in the strongest terms, follow the local’s advice immediately.)

I replied, “Okay, thanks. I’ll take the 10:45 ticket. Grazie.”

It took him a few minutes to personalize the ticket with my information – quite obviously, this was a very special ticket. When he finally handed it to me, he stopped, looked me straight in the eye, and said, “Do. Not. Lose. This. Ticket.” (His English was very good!)

I was a bit surprised by the solemnity of his injunction (particularly given the relaxed atmosphere of Rome in general), and I replied, “I won’t. Don’t worry!”

He still looked a little worried, but he seemed to relax in the belief that I may be taking the whole enterprise a little more seriously.

I’m going to say something really obvious for those who haven’t visited the Vatican: THE VATICAN HAS A LOT OF ART. Everywhere you go in the Vatican, you’ll see better art than anywhere else of the planet (with few exceptions) so don’t worry about visiting any one particular Vatican site. Art-wise, the shabbiest corner of the Vatican (and there aren’t any shabby corners in the Vatican) will still offer a dazzling piece of art. So relax, you’ll see art.

For instance, check out these fabulous mosaics narrating the life of St. Peter. Absolutely no tourists bothered to look at these fantastic mosaics on their way up to the Dome. In my opinion however, this mosaic is totally awesome. Look at that key!

Acquainting yourself with the basic tenets of Saint Peter’s life and times is an excellent way to prepare for a visit to the Vatican…on so many levels!!! Apologies to folks for whom the basic 411 on Saint Peter is really old news, but here’s some ever-so-basic background (culled from my many years of Catholic school and medievalist training) on Saint Peter: Jesus appointed Saint Peter as the Head of the Church, which means that Peter is the ROCK as well as the first Pope – in short, Peter holds the keys to heaven (in apocrypha and common iconography). That’s all well and good, but the really neat thing about Saint Peter is that the guy was totally human, and he made a major, MAJOR, major screw-up during the Crucifixion in denying Jesus three times before the cock crowed, i.e. before 7am when one needs to awake to visit the Vatican. (For those interested see: Matthew 26:33-35, Mark 14:29-31, Luke 22:34-35, John 13:36-38, or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial_of_Peter). Despite this sizeable blunder, Jesus made Saint Peter the head of the Catholic Church anyway. Which was pretty chill (or forgiving, in official parlance) of Jesus.

I like this narrative about Saint Peter because it suggests the enormous amount of peer-pressure that Saint Peter – who was otherwise one of the better disciples – must’ve experienced in the massive crowds attending the Crucifixion. Remember that even Saint Peter felt overwhelmed enough by noisy, pushing, toe-stomping, shoving, and yelling masses to deny Jesus – it’s an excellent lesson to recall before visiting the Vatican, where the sweating, smelly, deafening, and elbowing crowds could really make the average person do almost anything.

Since it was still early morning, I huffed and puffed my way up the stairs to the Dome, which provides excellent early-morning exercise (as long as you don’t mind vertigo) to anyone who’s been eating too much pasta in Rome. [Note: If you have any health problems (including a stubbed toe), do not attempt to climb all the stairs to the Vatican Dome.] Happily, the readers of “Strange and Sundry” have their own sightseeing Sherpa (me), and the view from the Vatican Dome is…pretty amazing. 

Next up! Saint Peter’s Basilica and Treasury:

Saint Peter’s Basilica must be seen to be believed – it’s ever so much grander and vaster than a photograph can show, and so I’ll just quote George Eliot's description of the Basilica to save time in thinking up poetic words to encapsulate the experience. Forgive me, but it took ALL SUMMER to finish Middlemarch, and I now claim the right to quote that loooong, maddening, often boring, but frequently brilliant and moving novel at will. The hero Will Ladislaw first sees (and falls in love with) the heroine Dorothea Brooke in St. Peter’s Basilica in Chapter XX; George Eliot characterizes her heroine’s overwhelming impression of St. Peter’s thus:

“Our moods are apt to bring with them images which succeed each other like the magic-lantern pictures…Dorothea all her life continued to see the vastness of St. Peter's, the huge bronze canopy, the excited intention in the attitudes and garments of the prophets and evangelists in the mosaics above…”

Eliot rightly notices that St. Peter’s “spreads over the retina”(paraphrase), and the experiencing of seeing this grand edifice might impress moody images upon you for a lifetime. In light of this sublime architectural and artistic wonderment, I’ll just pick out my favorite piece (as is my wont at “Strange and Sundry”). For this visit, I couldn't stop taking photographs of this memorial to Pope Gregory XIII (http://stpetersbasilica.info/Monuments/GregoryXIII/GregoryXIII.htm):

Not only does this monument commemorate the man who gave us the Gregorian Calendar, making it possible for perplexed travelers to distinguish summer from autumn in balmy Mediterranean climes, but it also features the most engaging dragon in the whole Vatican…possibly in the whole of Europe.

One vital lesson that I’ve learned on my European journey is that Americans need to invest in dragon statuary for public spaces. Consider this recent overview of new public sculpture in New York City: (http://ny.curbed.com/maps/best-public-art-installations-new-york-city). Yes, all of these new American sculptures have merit, but think how much cooler A DRAGON would be in any of these public parks or plazas. See? The answer is always DRAGON. You might think, “Oh Sharon, you just have a thing about dragons, which is silly.” To retort, “NO! Dragons are awesome, which is why our European forebears plastered dragons over every available surface, and it's also why dragons feature prominently in George R.R. Martin's 'Game of Thrones' novels.” Not only do dragons have the ability to symbolize sin, death, Satan, trial, strength, or general bad-assery, but they do this heavy symbolic work with big toothy grins. 

This particularly dragon evinces warmth, curiosity, and the sentiment, “Oh hey, what are you guys doing up there?” Unlike most dragons in Christian statuary (that tend to be factotums for Satan), this fetching dragon contributes a benign, inquisitive glance because it’s the heraldic marker of the Boncompagni family, which commissioned Camillo Rusconi to sculpt this memorial to their prestigious papal ancestor in 1723. Quite a friendly dragon! It's heartwarming to think that even dragons are welcome and accepted in the Vatican. 

In the Treasury Museum located below the Basilica, you pay a small fee to view an impressive collection that features reliquaries containing more saints’ bones than should still exist. For a good medievalist, the provenance of holy relics is always debatable. Anyone who’s read Boccaccio’s Decameron (http://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/authors/boccaccio/boc-6-10.html) or The Pardoner’s Prologue in The Canterbury Tales (http://www.sparknotes.com/nofear/lit/the-canterbury-tales/pardoners-prologue/) may doubt that these artifacts are genuine. Nevertheless, it’s pretty nifty to think that this reliquary could really contain St. Luke’s ENTIRE skull. Which acolyte had the idea to behead St. Luke? 

Unfortunately, the Treasury doesn’t allow photography, and I can’t find a picture of the Treasury's St. Luke reliquary online. (Does the Vatican wish to discourage discussion by dubious medievalists?) So I’ll leave you with a picture of the bronze rooster commissioned by Pope Leo IV in the 9^th century (http://stpetersbasilica.info/Interior/Sacristy-Treasury/Items/Museum-8.htm). 

When I first saw this rooster, I thought to myself, “How cool that a ninth-century pope should have a sense of humor about the 'Denial of Peter,'” but the Vatican’s website assures us that the rooster only symbolizes the coming of the new day. Uh huh.

Phew! There's so much to discuss about the Vatican! However, I'll need to relate my adventures in the Musei Vaticani on the next installment of "Strange and Sundry." It's a bit of cliffhanger, I know. You must be wondering if my very special entry ticket did the trick... Read "Strange and Sundry" to find out!

Also, excuse the long delay in publishing this post, but I've been quite busy! Not only did I see FIVE plays (in four days) in London -- to be reviewed soon -- but now I'm in Madrid where it's taken me two days to find a reasonable place to write with Wifi that works. Don't get me wrong: I LOVE MADRID. The weather is perfect; the food is delicious; the clothes are rocking; the people are friendly; the Prado Museum is sensational. Still, I wouldn't say that it's a city devoted to industry, if my own difficulty finding a reasonable writing space is any indication.

So coming up on "Strange and Sundry" -- The Vatican Museum! Trastevere! FIVE AMAZING PLAYS in London's spectacular autumn season! MADRID!!!! Buenos Días!!!