Margotlog: Snow
Yes, it snowed yesterday in St. Paul, Minnesota. The air swirled with heavy globs and drifty flakes, making me think, for a moment, of recalcitrant students until it dawned on me that I was not teaching undergraduates any more--AND this stuff in the front yard, back yard, and up and down the avenue was enrolled in an eduation system of its own kind.
Item One, Memory: Let's say thirty years ago, THE Halloween blizzard of all blizzards dumped at least three feet of snow on the Twin Cities in twenty-four hours. There we were, Fran and I, driving around in his "superior" Volkswagen. Item: THERE IS NO SUPERIOR VOLKSWAGEN in three feet of wet, heavy snow. We got stuck. Our tires spun. We skidded into snow banks. A big car pushed us out. Somehow we made our goal, whatever it was. That GOAL has melted into memory, but the blizzard itself will always remain frightful and intense--a whoop-de-do.
We were young and foolish.
Yesterday, globs of white stuff plummeted down, driving the squirrels in the backyard frantic. They were very wet, hungry and desperate. Not a one had built a leaf house in the arms of a tree. One, more intrepid than the others, rushed up on the deck and began chewing into the cooler where I'd been directed (by a higher power) to keep chunks of fancy suet cold. In my heavy house slippers, I chased the varmint off, but feeling sorry for the mob of gray desperados in the back yard, I cut several suet cakes into bits, grabbed handfulls of dry cat food, and with my parka flapping, but in my boots, rushed out to succor the mob. Opening the garage door to the metal trash cans that house the various kinds of seeds which I usually sprinkle on the ground, I suddenly found myself fanned by a squirrel rushing OUT of the garage. How it had made its way in, I now refuse to consider.
Let's say that nature has been kind. Outside my window, sun sparkles on the gold and red and green of a lovely fall morning. The light's angle is low which makes the leaves glimmer and shimmer in the light breeze. The temperature is around 45 degrees. It is a lovely fall day. I'll walk the long way, over Hamline Bridge to Fran's old neighborhood where Fran and I were deliriosly happy in first love.
But, I remind myself, it was May when we met. No weather events to mar our giddy delight. More mature and seasoned now, we can still be happy--he'll be home today from playing Scrabble in Madison. That would be Wisconsin for anyone reading this who isn't from the UPPER Midwest where almost every weather extreme except sand storms have been known to happen.
Monday, October 15, 2018
Sunday, September 23, 2018
Margotlog: A Russian Artist Among Us: Alexander Tylevich
Margotlog: A Russian Among Us: Alexander Tylevich
In our own vast country, how many of us can make sense of Russia with its mix of peoples, its peculiar history of enormous change, and its extraordinary artistic heritage? I have two recent claims: listening for maybe the fourth time to a wonderful translation and reading of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, and visiting the Bloomington (Minnesota) Center for the Arts to discover Alexander Tylevich's narrow, see-through mylar/bronze/steel figures frozen in motion--walking, biking, running. Anna Karenina, first published in its entirety in 1878, is set in the mid-to-late 19th century. It is probably the quintessential novel in any language, full full of gentle love, enormous wealth, dreadful sadness, and a sophistication that would put most Americans of any era, except maybe Lincoln, to shame.
Now, into our rather bland midwestern mix comes a contemporary Russian artist. My husband and I discovered Alexander Tylevich's work with the help of a friend. We saw first, Tylevich's huge, spiraling, free-wheeling collage in the "Robert Bruininks" University of Minnesota building just across from the Weisman Art Center. Tylevich's collage sculpture, probably five stories high, rises up and up and up from the ground floor, within its own columnar space, accompanied by its own spiraling stairway as if to help viewers take in the marvels of see-through colored plates cut in unexpected cones, squares, daggers--different yet related not just to each other, but to things scientific and mathematical, for this is a science building. Yet, when we asked the young people at the information desk, none seemed to know anything about the sculpture. We determined to find out what we could about Alexander Tylevich.
Then several months later arrived an announcement that his small sculptures would be on view at the Bloomington, Minnesota, Art Center. Here is what the website of the Art Center says about him:
Alexander Tylevich is an award-winning sculptor and architect born in Minsk, Belarus. His projects range from freestanding site-specific sculptures to a master plan for a metropolitan city. Since immigrating to the United States in 1989, he has realized more than 70 major art commissions and several architectural projects. He often works as a member of a larger team, with architects, landscape architects, and other design professionals. Tylevich’s work always demonstrates a purposeful co-mingling of the two disciplines of architecture and sculpture, and perhaps the best single word to describe his approach is ‘confluence.’
This certainly describes the enormous suspended sculpture we discovered in the University of Minnesota Bruininks' building. In fact, our neighbor who introduced us to Tylevich's work, helped install it, and emphasized that the process was rigorous, pains-staking, and frightening.
What we saw last week at the Bloomington Art Center certainly had elements in common with the huge suspended spiral. But two things were remarkably different: Though a few of the Tylevich's sculptures in the show are heroic, rising head and shoulders above some sort of crowd, most of the sculptures are small. Not tiny like Thumbelina, but the size of a large hand as they stride along or ride their bikes, in motion even as they themselves are anonymous--perhaps a Russian form of the "common man." Not a single one I saw seemed female. But then, these figures propose change, even revolution. I couldn't help thinking of my young, chain-smoking college literature teacher from Russian who introduced us to One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.
The point of the book and perhaps too of Tylevich's small, very active figures is that the common man is made for change, brought about not by long hours at a desk but by odd offerings --a leg ending at the knee, or a face missing an ear, or a body as narrow as a pane of glass, steel, or bronze, somehow peddaling along though missing most of its other half. Yet motion/action never pauses for loss. One may be disfigured, yet one soldiers on.
In our own vast country, how many of us can make sense of Russia with its mix of peoples, its peculiar history of enormous change, and its extraordinary artistic heritage? I have two recent claims: listening for maybe the fourth time to a wonderful translation and reading of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, and visiting the Bloomington (Minnesota) Center for the Arts to discover Alexander Tylevich's narrow, see-through mylar/bronze/steel figures frozen in motion--walking, biking, running. Anna Karenina, first published in its entirety in 1878, is set in the mid-to-late 19th century. It is probably the quintessential novel in any language, full full of gentle love, enormous wealth, dreadful sadness, and a sophistication that would put most Americans of any era, except maybe Lincoln, to shame.
Now, into our rather bland midwestern mix comes a contemporary Russian artist. My husband and I discovered Alexander Tylevich's work with the help of a friend. We saw first, Tylevich's huge, spiraling, free-wheeling collage in the "Robert Bruininks" University of Minnesota building just across from the Weisman Art Center. Tylevich's collage sculpture, probably five stories high, rises up and up and up from the ground floor, within its own columnar space, accompanied by its own spiraling stairway as if to help viewers take in the marvels of see-through colored plates cut in unexpected cones, squares, daggers--different yet related not just to each other, but to things scientific and mathematical, for this is a science building. Yet, when we asked the young people at the information desk, none seemed to know anything about the sculpture. We determined to find out what we could about Alexander Tylevich.
Then several months later arrived an announcement that his small sculptures would be on view at the Bloomington, Minnesota, Art Center. Here is what the website of the Art Center says about him:
Alexander Tylevich is an award-winning sculptor and architect born in Minsk, Belarus. His projects range from freestanding site-specific sculptures to a master plan for a metropolitan city. Since immigrating to the United States in 1989, he has realized more than 70 major art commissions and several architectural projects. He often works as a member of a larger team, with architects, landscape architects, and other design professionals. Tylevich’s work always demonstrates a purposeful co-mingling of the two disciplines of architecture and sculpture, and perhaps the best single word to describe his approach is ‘confluence.’
This certainly describes the enormous suspended sculpture we discovered in the University of Minnesota Bruininks' building. In fact, our neighbor who introduced us to Tylevich's work, helped install it, and emphasized that the process was rigorous, pains-staking, and frightening.
What we saw last week at the Bloomington Art Center certainly had elements in common with the huge suspended spiral. But two things were remarkably different: Though a few of the Tylevich's sculptures in the show are heroic, rising head and shoulders above some sort of crowd, most of the sculptures are small. Not tiny like Thumbelina, but the size of a large hand as they stride along or ride their bikes, in motion even as they themselves are anonymous--perhaps a Russian form of the "common man." Not a single one I saw seemed female. But then, these figures propose change, even revolution. I couldn't help thinking of my young, chain-smoking college literature teacher from Russian who introduced us to One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.
The point of the book and perhaps too of Tylevich's small, very active figures is that the common man is made for change, brought about not by long hours at a desk but by odd offerings --a leg ending at the knee, or a face missing an ear, or a body as narrow as a pane of glass, steel, or bronze, somehow peddaling along though missing most of its other half. Yet motion/action never pauses for loss. One may be disfigured, yet one soldiers on.
Tuesday, September 11, 2018
Margotlog: Cerise Chiffon and Medieval Stone: Musing on an Exhibit at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art
Margotlog: Cerise Chiffon and Medieval Stone: Musing on an Exhibit at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art
Walking up from the cafeteria in the Museum's depths, I stepped into the Medieval galleries, expecting ancient gray stone. A shimmering cerise gown stood in the way. As I moved through the large gallery, I discovered other models wearing rich fabrics. Some suggested medieval styles: high flared collars, tight sleeves with flaring cuffs, and bodices tight to the female form. These were not live models, but "dummies" without heads, except for the sightless eyes and severe lips of those wearing cloches--an odd word I remember my mother using. Cloche: a hat, usually made of felt, fitting tightly to the scalp. Some of these were of the same rich brocade as their heavy gowns.
Yet all around these figures, so dazzling in color and form, remained the mute, gray, ancient bas reliefs, or occasional figures from the medieval period. Many of them were fragments of larger works; many of them had religious meaning. The Virgin Mary is a crucial figure in Christianity. Her son died on the cross for human sins, yet she lived on and became an intercessor for our weak and troubled souls. I find her cowled and praying figure one of the most endearing hopes when I feel the most downcast. She is the mother of us all, quiet, loving, and generous in spirit. She mourns, yet lives.
What point did the museum curators intend when they studded her medieval milieu full of piety and quiet generosity with the dazzling gowns of modern designers? Yes, the gowns were all meant for women. No question about that. So, in their own way, they celebrated women, in figure, and elegance, and lavish richness. I suppose the gowns could be taken as a critique of medieval quietude.
Some of them almost flaunt the female body, like the cerise, strapless chiffon gown.
I propose that we need them all, these images of women, gray and antique, or lavish and modern. As the medieval gongs and viols, sharp cimbals and rat-a-tat drums made their mark, I thought of the centuries of women's presence, whether carved in stone or simply brought to life in contempory rich, elegant and sometimes revealing garments.
Walking up from the cafeteria in the Museum's depths, I stepped into the Medieval galleries, expecting ancient gray stone. A shimmering cerise gown stood in the way. As I moved through the large gallery, I discovered other models wearing rich fabrics. Some suggested medieval styles: high flared collars, tight sleeves with flaring cuffs, and bodices tight to the female form. These were not live models, but "dummies" without heads, except for the sightless eyes and severe lips of those wearing cloches--an odd word I remember my mother using. Cloche: a hat, usually made of felt, fitting tightly to the scalp. Some of these were of the same rich brocade as their heavy gowns.
Yet all around these figures, so dazzling in color and form, remained the mute, gray, ancient bas reliefs, or occasional figures from the medieval period. Many of them were fragments of larger works; many of them had religious meaning. The Virgin Mary is a crucial figure in Christianity. Her son died on the cross for human sins, yet she lived on and became an intercessor for our weak and troubled souls. I find her cowled and praying figure one of the most endearing hopes when I feel the most downcast. She is the mother of us all, quiet, loving, and generous in spirit. She mourns, yet lives.
What point did the museum curators intend when they studded her medieval milieu full of piety and quiet generosity with the dazzling gowns of modern designers? Yes, the gowns were all meant for women. No question about that. So, in their own way, they celebrated women, in figure, and elegance, and lavish richness. I suppose the gowns could be taken as a critique of medieval quietude.
Some of them almost flaunt the female body, like the cerise, strapless chiffon gown.
I propose that we need them all, these images of women, gray and antique, or lavish and modern. As the medieval gongs and viols, sharp cimbals and rat-a-tat drums made their mark, I thought of the centuries of women's presence, whether carved in stone or simply brought to life in contempory rich, elegant and sometimes revealing garments.
Monday, August 27, 2018
Margotlog: News from China and Iowa of Long Ago
Margotlog: Galts in China And Iowa During World War II and the Vietnam War
Here is an email I received this morning, out of the blue:
Dear Ms Galt: I have come into possession of a small notebook once kept by Edith Galt (1917-1961). I would be happy to return the notebook to the Galt family if you would like it back. I traced Edith\'s family via Ancestry.com, Newspapers.com and Google, and am contacting you because your contact information was the easiest for me to quickly find. The notebook is about 3x4 inches and contains notes and accounts that Edith kept while at Grinnell College and in China. Wedged among the yellowed pages is a small photograph of a young woman. The book was found, years ago, in the attic of farmhouse near Tama, Iowa, which is about 30 miles north of Grinnell. The elderly woman who found it is no longer sure exactly where the house was or if it is still standing. She found the notebook while sorting for her own move. I\'m happy to mail the book to any address you provide.
What a thrill: This is what the internet and email are supposed to provide: surprises, astonishment, and gratitude. Feeling all those lively emotions, I wrote back to this kind, honorable women:
It doesn't surprise me that the notebook was found near Grinnell.
According to my rather sketchy knowledge of the Galt family, my husband Fran's
father Ralph was raised in China by missionary parents, both of whom came
from Iowa. They returned to the U.S. for Ralph to attend Grinnell.
Once graduated , Ralph married a lovely young woman from New England, Louisa (named for Louisa May Alcott), and the two of them, in their turn, took a ship for missionary work in China.
This brings us up to the outbreak of World War II, during which Louisa and Ralph were exchanged for Japanese prisoners of war and were allowed to return on a slow boat around the tip of South America and through the Port of New York. Once in the U.S. Ralph refused to register for the draft. This was 1942, in the midst of World War II. As "draft refuser," or conscientious objector, Ralph was imprisoned in a federal prison in West Virginia from September 1942 to early 1944, a total of 21 months.
When he was incarcerated, his wife Louisa was already pregnant. She gave birth to Fran's brother Lester in 1943 while Ralph was still in prison. Once he was released on parole, the family moved to Shawnee Mission, Oklahoma, where Ralph was state director for the Christian Rural Oversea's Program, or CROP. The couple's second child, the son Francis, was born in 1947. Francis would eventually become my husband.
Interestingly enough, Fran himself refused the draft and spent two years, from 1966-68, in Federal prison at Springfield Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, Missouri. He was given the job of typist to two employees: a prison psychologist and a jail inspector. Released in 1968, Fran was later paroled by President Gerald Ford in 1976.
Grandfather Galt, the original missionary to China, and his wife Alti Cummings, had three children, Ralph, and two sisters, one of whom was Edith, whose diary has been discovered in an attic near Grinnell. It's truly astonishing how in the years before the internet or even transoceanic telephone, so many of my husband's family conducted their lives overseas. Perhaps it's a clue that until he met me, Fran did not cross an ocean, but remained close to the Midwest where his family settled before and after they took the long boat to China.
Here is an email I received this morning, out of the blue:
Dear Ms Galt: I have come into possession of a small notebook once kept by Edith Galt (1917-1961). I would be happy to return the notebook to the Galt family if you would like it back. I traced Edith\'s family via Ancestry.com, Newspapers.com and Google, and am contacting you because your contact information was the easiest for me to quickly find. The notebook is about 3x4 inches and contains notes and accounts that Edith kept while at Grinnell College and in China. Wedged among the yellowed pages is a small photograph of a young woman. The book was found, years ago, in the attic of farmhouse near Tama, Iowa, which is about 30 miles north of Grinnell. The elderly woman who found it is no longer sure exactly where the house was or if it is still standing. She found the notebook while sorting for her own move. I\'m happy to mail the book to any address you provide.
What a thrill: This is what the internet and email are supposed to provide: surprises, astonishment, and gratitude. Feeling all those lively emotions, I wrote back to this kind, honorable women:
It doesn't surprise me that the notebook was found near Grinnell.
According to my rather sketchy knowledge of the Galt family, my husband Fran's
father Ralph was raised in China by missionary parents, both of whom came
from Iowa. They returned to the U.S. for Ralph to attend Grinnell.
Once graduated , Ralph married a lovely young woman from New England, Louisa (named for Louisa May Alcott), and the two of them, in their turn, took a ship for missionary work in China.
This brings us up to the outbreak of World War II, during which Louisa and Ralph were exchanged for Japanese prisoners of war and were allowed to return on a slow boat around the tip of South America and through the Port of New York. Once in the U.S. Ralph refused to register for the draft. This was 1942, in the midst of World War II. As "draft refuser," or conscientious objector, Ralph was imprisoned in a federal prison in West Virginia from September 1942 to early 1944, a total of 21 months.
When he was incarcerated, his wife Louisa was already pregnant. She gave birth to Fran's brother Lester in 1943 while Ralph was still in prison. Once he was released on parole, the family moved to Shawnee Mission, Oklahoma, where Ralph was state director for the Christian Rural Oversea's Program, or CROP. The couple's second child, the son Francis, was born in 1947. Francis would eventually become my husband.
Interestingly enough, Fran himself refused the draft and spent two years, from 1966-68, in Federal prison at Springfield Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, Missouri. He was given the job of typist to two employees: a prison psychologist and a jail inspector. Released in 1968, Fran was later paroled by President Gerald Ford in 1976.
Grandfather Galt, the original missionary to China, and his wife Alti Cummings, had three children, Ralph, and two sisters, one of whom was Edith, whose diary has been discovered in an attic near Grinnell. It's truly astonishing how in the years before the internet or even transoceanic telephone, so many of my husband's family conducted their lives overseas. Perhaps it's a clue that until he met me, Fran did not cross an ocean, but remained close to the Midwest where his family settled before and after they took the long boat to China.
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Thursday, July 26, 2018
Margotlog: The Art of Losing
Margotlog: The Art of Losing
Elizabeth Bishop's villanelle, "The Art of Losing" has the command and sheen of great art. It's been one of my favorites for a very long time. Now I think of it after a day of losing first one, then another, then yet another crucial item: my car keys, my bigger cell phone, and almost my mind.
The art of losing isn't hard to master
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Losing and searching can become an obsession of flitting here, then there. Will the cell phone be hiding in the depths of my purse? Did I put it on the dining room floor as I ate dinner last night?
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spend.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I call my very put-together friend whose house is just beyond the Ford Bridge i.e. just inside Minneapolis. "Mary," I say with a touch of hysteria in my voice, "I can't seem to find your house. Some nice man with a dress shop pointed me back to the Parkway, but now the numbers on 35th Avenue are totally off, far beyond yours!"
....I lost two cities, lovely ones. And vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
Plucking up my courage, still unable to find my cell phone. I take a discarded old phone to AT&T where a charming young man sets is up to work again with a new "sym" card. Now it's chirping as it powers up. But will I be able to turn it off once on the plane to Amherst? So far, that hasn't worked. It chirps, and chirps, and chirps.
practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
Tomorrow in the dark before dawn, I will fly to visit this dear friend, younger than I am by at least a decade. Seven months ago, his partner of many years died of a cancer that could no longer be kept at bay. "I still weep every day," he tells me on the phone. Now as I turn myself toward the east, I sorrow for the one who is lost, joy for his life we both loved, though in vastly different intensites.
--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love), I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
Elizabeth Bishop's villanelle, "The Art of Losing" has the command and sheen of great art. It's been one of my favorites for a very long time. Now I think of it after a day of losing first one, then another, then yet another crucial item: my car keys, my bigger cell phone, and almost my mind.
The art of losing isn't hard to master
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Losing and searching can become an obsession of flitting here, then there. Will the cell phone be hiding in the depths of my purse? Did I put it on the dining room floor as I ate dinner last night?
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spend.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I call my very put-together friend whose house is just beyond the Ford Bridge i.e. just inside Minneapolis. "Mary," I say with a touch of hysteria in my voice, "I can't seem to find your house. Some nice man with a dress shop pointed me back to the Parkway, but now the numbers on 35th Avenue are totally off, far beyond yours!"
....I lost two cities, lovely ones. And vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
Plucking up my courage, still unable to find my cell phone. I take a discarded old phone to AT&T where a charming young man sets is up to work again with a new "sym" card. Now it's chirping as it powers up. But will I be able to turn it off once on the plane to Amherst? So far, that hasn't worked. It chirps, and chirps, and chirps.
practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
Tomorrow in the dark before dawn, I will fly to visit this dear friend, younger than I am by at least a decade. Seven months ago, his partner of many years died of a cancer that could no longer be kept at bay. "I still weep every day," he tells me on the phone. Now as I turn myself toward the east, I sorrow for the one who is lost, joy for his life we both loved, though in vastly different intensites.
--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love), I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
Friday, July 6, 2018
Margotlog: Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses Yearning To Be Free
Margotlog: "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses Yearning To Be Free"
The photo on the front page of the StarTribune
6/16/18 shows a boy, around six, staring up at an adult in combat garb toting a
night-stick and hand gun. Behind the boy stands another adult wearing a red
t-shirt, worn jeans, and running shoes.
How is it possible that the United States, home of
immigrants from around the world, has begun in a big way, the separation of immigrant children from
their parents? In 1900, my Italian grandmother, newly arrived in New York from Sicily. Her husband had served in the Italiay army and been sent to the North where he converted to Protestantism. When he returned to their tiny town in northern Sicily and built a small church for a very small congregation, Catholic townpeople burned it. He rebuilt, but the townpeople burned the second church. Fearing for their lives, the family came to New York. There Rose who would become my grandmother became so concerned
for the hungry children and poorly clad women around her in the New York tenements that she
delivered food, warm clothing, and blankets to residents three flights up. She
soon collapsed and died.
Doing good for those in need is surely at the heart of every
religious tradition on earth—that is, except for the Trump administration.
Trump & Company have ordered thousands of children to be separated from their
parents who’ve illegally crossed the U.S./Mexican border.
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-[tossed] to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Let us be the lamp of hope, as we offer freedom from want, charity toward all, and acceptance among us.
Thursday, June 14, 2018
Margotlog: Two Statues in Florence's Bargello
Margotlog: Two Statues (Interrupted) in Florence's Bargello
Usually I've thought of myself as a lover of paintings, but when I visited Florence's Bargello Museum this past May, I changed my mind. Once a prison, the Bargello now is Florence's "municipal" sculpture gallery, full of extraordinary sculptures that fill a huge upper gallery. There are so many it's hard to take them all in. I didn't try. Almost immediately I was riveted by two, small, free-standing sculptures of young men. The first--Donatello's "David," is very family. This tart" of a boy, with round stomach and flaring backside, hides his expression under his shepherd's hat, decked with flowers and pulled low over his curls. But his pose is unmistakably that of triumph: Standing with one leg cocked, he balances one hand on the sword he used to slay the giant, Goliath.
It is a very sexy statue. The giant's winged helmet slides its wing up the boy's leg, giving us a shiver so enticing, it's hard to believe--that soft wing against the boy's naked inner thigh. Yet David doesn't seem to notice. He pouts, and withdraws into himself. He does not lift his head. In fact, he seems bemused by what he has done.
Across the huge chamber stands another young male figure--very slender, almost emaciated, holding a staff against his body. He is "St. John the Baptist" by Desiderio da Settingnano.
............................
To visit the Bargello I was using the last few hours of my "Firenze" three-day pass. Initially I had activated the pass when I arrived with my two friends from Minnesota, Mary and Drew. An hour or so after we checked into our "Monestary Stay" convent, Drew became ill. The vivid red swath on his neck shouted distress: infection was creeping down his throat from his ear.
Immediately we took a taxi to a British doctor whom Mary located on the internet. This kind man gave Drew an antibiotic injection, but also suggested we visit Careggie, the hospital/clinic complex high in the hills around Florence.
I remember nothing of the drive to the hospital, but the nightmare of arrival is clear: we flitted from door to door, doctor to doctor in this huge complex and finally ended taking seats in a huge clinic full of other sufferers. Despite my Italian, despite waiting four hours, we eventually gave up.
Sitting beside the taxi driver as we left the hospital and drove back to town, I was struck by the beautiful green of the umbrella pines and darker spears of cypress. It was a beautiful May afternoon. For a few moments, the land enchanted me it has so often before.
Mary and Drew located a flight home that left just after midnight. This gave us time to enjoy a "last supper" at Accadi near the hotel. Next morning, they were gone, and I had two days to use my Firenze pass.
Sampling gelato, which was especially delicious, I walked along the Arno with its frothy jets and visited the Church of the Carmine. Then retracing my steps toward the Ponte Vecchio, and my room, I changed clothes to something cooler and headed for the Bargello.
..........................
Desiderio da Settignano is a less well-known than is Donatello, in part, I think, because he did not live as long, and in part because his scrulptures are more direct than Donatello's. Yet I was determined to give St. John the Baptist as much attention as I could muster.
Slowly, studying first the front of the sculpture, noticing the pelts that clothe the shepherd's emaciated form, I remembered bits of the Baptist's story. As Christ's precurser, John the Baptist lived in the wilderness, searching for spiritual insight. He ate nuts and fruit and made friends of wolves and even lions. Settingano's Baptist is so thin as to be anoxsic, but that is the point: he has renounced the fruits of the worldly life, and become an ascetic.
Keeping my eyes on the face with its somewhat stern expression, I slowly walked about the scupture. Do I remember whether Settignanon put his John the Baptist firmly on both feet? Now that I think of it, I believe that like Donatello's David, Settingnano has John the Baptist bend one knee. One heel is off the ground. This seems to suggest that all human effort is tentative. Just as with myself and my dear friends, Mary and Drew, we become caught in a flow of experience, not knowing what would happen next.
Now my eyes fill with tears. I am so sorry that Mary and Drew lost the experiences we had hoped to share. Their return home was harrowing--they missed the first transAtlantic flight out of Amsterdam and had to wait hours and hours before boarding another. Once home, Drew spent two days in the hospital. But modern medicine can work miracles. Drew is well, and Mary is her joyful self again.
Like Settignano's beautiful, emaciated figure of John the Baptist, we can pause only for a moment before life sends us on our way. Yet, as I studied this astere figure, so slender and alone, I discovered on the far side of his face, the beginning of a joyful smile. In the midst of uncertainty and torment, he broke free into ecstatic hope.
Usually I've thought of myself as a lover of paintings, but when I visited Florence's Bargello Museum this past May, I changed my mind. Once a prison, the Bargello now is Florence's "municipal" sculpture gallery, full of extraordinary sculptures that fill a huge upper gallery. There are so many it's hard to take them all in. I didn't try. Almost immediately I was riveted by two, small, free-standing sculptures of young men. The first--Donatello's "David," is very family. This tart" of a boy, with round stomach and flaring backside, hides his expression under his shepherd's hat, decked with flowers and pulled low over his curls. But his pose is unmistakably that of triumph: Standing with one leg cocked, he balances one hand on the sword he used to slay the giant, Goliath.
It is a very sexy statue. The giant's winged helmet slides its wing up the boy's leg, giving us a shiver so enticing, it's hard to believe--that soft wing against the boy's naked inner thigh. Yet David doesn't seem to notice. He pouts, and withdraws into himself. He does not lift his head. In fact, he seems bemused by what he has done.
Across the huge chamber stands another young male figure--very slender, almost emaciated, holding a staff against his body. He is "St. John the Baptist" by Desiderio da Settingnano.
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To visit the Bargello I was using the last few hours of my "Firenze" three-day pass. Initially I had activated the pass when I arrived with my two friends from Minnesota, Mary and Drew. An hour or so after we checked into our "Monestary Stay" convent, Drew became ill. The vivid red swath on his neck shouted distress: infection was creeping down his throat from his ear.
Immediately we took a taxi to a British doctor whom Mary located on the internet. This kind man gave Drew an antibiotic injection, but also suggested we visit Careggie, the hospital/clinic complex high in the hills around Florence.
I remember nothing of the drive to the hospital, but the nightmare of arrival is clear: we flitted from door to door, doctor to doctor in this huge complex and finally ended taking seats in a huge clinic full of other sufferers. Despite my Italian, despite waiting four hours, we eventually gave up.
Sitting beside the taxi driver as we left the hospital and drove back to town, I was struck by the beautiful green of the umbrella pines and darker spears of cypress. It was a beautiful May afternoon. For a few moments, the land enchanted me it has so often before.
Mary and Drew located a flight home that left just after midnight. This gave us time to enjoy a "last supper" at Accadi near the hotel. Next morning, they were gone, and I had two days to use my Firenze pass.
Sampling gelato, which was especially delicious, I walked along the Arno with its frothy jets and visited the Church of the Carmine. Then retracing my steps toward the Ponte Vecchio, and my room, I changed clothes to something cooler and headed for the Bargello.
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Desiderio da Settignano is a less well-known than is Donatello, in part, I think, because he did not live as long, and in part because his scrulptures are more direct than Donatello's. Yet I was determined to give St. John the Baptist as much attention as I could muster.
Slowly, studying first the front of the sculpture, noticing the pelts that clothe the shepherd's emaciated form, I remembered bits of the Baptist's story. As Christ's precurser, John the Baptist lived in the wilderness, searching for spiritual insight. He ate nuts and fruit and made friends of wolves and even lions. Settingano's Baptist is so thin as to be anoxsic, but that is the point: he has renounced the fruits of the worldly life, and become an ascetic.
Keeping my eyes on the face with its somewhat stern expression, I slowly walked about the scupture. Do I remember whether Settignanon put his John the Baptist firmly on both feet? Now that I think of it, I believe that like Donatello's David, Settingnano has John the Baptist bend one knee. One heel is off the ground. This seems to suggest that all human effort is tentative. Just as with myself and my dear friends, Mary and Drew, we become caught in a flow of experience, not knowing what would happen next.
Now my eyes fill with tears. I am so sorry that Mary and Drew lost the experiences we had hoped to share. Their return home was harrowing--they missed the first transAtlantic flight out of Amsterdam and had to wait hours and hours before boarding another. Once home, Drew spent two days in the hospital. But modern medicine can work miracles. Drew is well, and Mary is her joyful self again.
Like Settignano's beautiful, emaciated figure of John the Baptist, we can pause only for a moment before life sends us on our way. Yet, as I studied this astere figure, so slender and alone, I discovered on the far side of his face, the beginning of a joyful smile. In the midst of uncertainty and torment, he broke free into ecstatic hope.
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