Milano - Special "No Foto" Edition
Today went to two of Milan's art galleries, the Brera and the Ambrosiana. Forewarned that photos would not be permitted, and following up on some advice from corbaegirl, I took a couple of extra sheets of paper to make notes about what I would have liked to take pictures of.
Pinacoteca di Brera
- in the Valle Romita polyptych, a Mary Magdalene whose dress is actually purple. Say what you like about purple, and whether a color that we moderns would call purple can be produced with period dyes, it doesn't really show up too often in period paintings of garments. This was a sort of dusky color, a bit too intense to be called lavender but not the deep jewel tone of a modern purple.
- a Saint Sebastian by Liberale da Verona (ca. 1445-1527) with lively scenes of everyday life in renaissance Venice behind the main subject - ladies with their hair piled up in the traditional Venetian fashion peering out from balconies, gentlemen riding around in gondolas, young men showing off their fancy hosen, etc.
- a Disputation of Saint Stephen by Vittore Carpaccio with various imaginary monuments in the background, including a thingy shaped exactly like the Eiffel Tower (only in stone, not steel)
- a Moses Saved from the Water by Veronese (first half of the sixteenth century) with quite a large number of the figures wearing striped garments
- the Pala Sforzesco, by an unknown artist. Having now seen it with my own eyes, I can accept that the painting of the striped dress with the prodigious number of peach-colored points does really exist, though I would still like to find out more about its back story.
- beautiful wood paneled library with cases of books going up two storeys.
Pinacoteca Ambrosiana
- early seventeenth century German anthropormorphic figures, made of seashells and insect parts, each in something about the size of a large sardine tin. Think Arcimboldo in 3D and you will be heading in the right direction. Only with actual bug parts. Yech!
- very large rosary of rhino horn beads (each about the size of the first joint of my thumb) interspersed with armillary spheres and zodiac signs.
- a Madonna of the Towers by Bramantino, with a great big dead toad on its back in the foreground (apparently it is supposed to represent the Devil, slain by the Archangel Michael)
- armillary spheres, an astrolabe, an automaton of Diana the Huntress, and a reliquary (nothing else to call it, really) with a lock of Lucrezia Borgia's beautiful blonde hair*, **
- gloves worn by Napoleon at Waterloo, and a dagger used by some guy to assassinate one of the renaissance Visconti or Sforza dukes.
- A LIBRARY
- the cast of "Girl Genius" would approve: Leonardo's notebooks included studies of various mechanisms and a page with "sketches on compound shadows and their motions; and curious sketches of twenty-three different hats" (emphasis mine)
*notwithstanding I see she is being played by a redhead in the current production of "The Borgias"
**I felt no more moved by it than I would by any other lock of hair of any color in an overly-fancy reliquary, but apparently George Gordon, Lord Byron was quite taken with it.
Pinacoteca di Brera
- in the Valle Romita polyptych, a Mary Magdalene whose dress is actually purple. Say what you like about purple, and whether a color that we moderns would call purple can be produced with period dyes, it doesn't really show up too often in period paintings of garments. This was a sort of dusky color, a bit too intense to be called lavender but not the deep jewel tone of a modern purple.
- a Saint Sebastian by Liberale da Verona (ca. 1445-1527) with lively scenes of everyday life in renaissance Venice behind the main subject - ladies with their hair piled up in the traditional Venetian fashion peering out from balconies, gentlemen riding around in gondolas, young men showing off their fancy hosen, etc.
- a Disputation of Saint Stephen by Vittore Carpaccio with various imaginary monuments in the background, including a thingy shaped exactly like the Eiffel Tower (only in stone, not steel)
- a Moses Saved from the Water by Veronese (first half of the sixteenth century) with quite a large number of the figures wearing striped garments
- the Pala Sforzesco, by an unknown artist. Having now seen it with my own eyes, I can accept that the painting of the striped dress with the prodigious number of peach-colored points does really exist, though I would still like to find out more about its back story.
- beautiful wood paneled library with cases of books going up two storeys.
Pinacoteca Ambrosiana
- early seventeenth century German anthropormorphic figures, made of seashells and insect parts, each in something about the size of a large sardine tin. Think Arcimboldo in 3D and you will be heading in the right direction. Only with actual bug parts. Yech!
- very large rosary of rhino horn beads (each about the size of the first joint of my thumb) interspersed with armillary spheres and zodiac signs.
- a Madonna of the Towers by Bramantino, with a great big dead toad on its back in the foreground (apparently it is supposed to represent the Devil, slain by the Archangel Michael)
- armillary spheres, an astrolabe, an automaton of Diana the Huntress, and a reliquary (nothing else to call it, really) with a lock of Lucrezia Borgia's beautiful blonde hair*, **
- gloves worn by Napoleon at Waterloo, and a dagger used by some guy to assassinate one of the renaissance Visconti or Sforza dukes.
- A LIBRARY
- the cast of "Girl Genius" would approve: Leonardo's notebooks included studies of various mechanisms and a page with "sketches on compound shadows and their motions; and curious sketches of twenty-three different hats" (emphasis mine)
*notwithstanding I see she is being played by a redhead in the current production of "The Borgias"
**I felt no more moved by it than I would by any other lock of hair of any color in an overly-fancy reliquary, but apparently George Gordon, Lord Byron was quite taken with it.