Friday, September 01, 2006
Titian is My Main Man
You still have time to get down to the National Gallery and see the exhibit, Bellini, Giorgione, and Titian, which closes September 17. Titian is one of my favorite painters of all time. The colors and the details and the frills on the end of a sleeve that catch the light. My kind of guy.
This piece is not in the exhibit, but it is the painting that got me started on my Titian Thing. I was on a trip to Venice with my family when I was 15 and drifted into the Church of the Frari, only to find this spectacular Assumption of the Virgin altarpiece. I couldn't quit looking - I think the light is especially marvelous; I love the light at the center of the piece, between the crowd and the cloud. Aparently the painting was controversial - some thought the figures in the bottom half were too large and would distract from Mary and Karl Marx - oops, I mean God, up there in the clouds. But the yearning of the crowd below is so great, surely we join them.
So, head on down to the National Gallery - you've still got a couple of weeks!
Here's a good read for today: Kathi Wolfe's terrific review of a biography of sci-fi writer James Tiptree, Jr., in the Washington Blade. Turns out Tiptree was a... No, I won't tell! You'll have to go read the review to find out!
This piece is not in the exhibit, but it is the painting that got me started on my Titian Thing. I was on a trip to Venice with my family when I was 15 and drifted into the Church of the Frari, only to find this spectacular Assumption of the Virgin altarpiece. I couldn't quit looking - I think the light is especially marvelous; I love the light at the center of the piece, between the crowd and the cloud. Aparently the painting was controversial - some thought the figures in the bottom half were too large and would distract from Mary and Karl Marx - oops, I mean God, up there in the clouds. But the yearning of the crowd below is so great, surely we join them.
So, head on down to the National Gallery - you've still got a couple of weeks!
Here's a good read for today: Kathi Wolfe's terrific review of a biography of sci-fi writer James Tiptree, Jr., in the Washington Blade. Turns out Tiptree was a... No, I won't tell! You'll have to go read the review to find out!
