Pope and Pancakes

On Wednesday, my friend Juliana provided tickets for eleven of us to attend an "Audience with the Pope". He does these audiences every Wednesday. The tickets can be gotten through any parish. From the sound of it, it sounded like maybe 300 people would be in a room, and the Pope would speak at a podium about a topic (this week's was about the upcoming Peace conference in Assisi). It turned out to be very different.


Firstly, it seemed like there were 20,000 people there. Everyone was in St. Peter's Square, waiting in lines (which in Italy are not lines, they are masses of people pushing each other in a large clump). Because of the light rain, the Pope was not going to speak outside where he normally does, he was going to speak inside an auditorium. Unfortunately, the auditorium doesn't fit as many people are the usual outdoor seating. After a few minutes of waiting in the mass, the auditorium was full and we didn't make it inside. The Pope was going to speak a little bit in the Basilica so that the people who didn't get inside the auditorium could see him there even for just a moment. We joined the masses in the "line" to get inside the basilica, which must first go through the security line of metal detectors and X-ray machines. This bottleneck really slowed things down. I managed to get to the Basilica with enough time to see the Pope for a minute from across the Basilica. He then left to go to the auditorium.


I was amazed at the number of people there from all over the world. All sorts of people of all ages. The country with the most people there by far was Germany. Pope Benedict is very popular with the Germans. When we were waiting, announcers on the loudspeakers listed the countries where pilgrims were coming from in the native language, and then listed the parishes or organizations that were attending the Audience. The list of pilgrims from Germany was the largest by far.


Large television screens displayed live streaming footage from inside the auditorium to the people outside in the Square. I liked the music best of all.



Afterwards, me and my friends Abe and Allison made "Post-Pope-Pancakes". They had chocolate shavings in them, and way more butter and sugar than your average pancake. We also made a cinnamon syrup to go with them, and listened to Disco music as we ate them. It was excellent.

Figure Sculpture and Advanced Drawing

This past week was Midterms.  This drawing is from my drawing midterm.  It's about 6 feet tall by 7 feet wide.


It uses the ink and line-work I've been working with this semester, except I used charcoal instead of a carbon pencil.  The lines are rougher.

I've also made work in my Figure Sculpture class that has turned out well.  I'm no Bernini, but the figure sculpture has been something I've been enjoying.

Lately we've been working with plasticine, which is like an oil based clay.  The standing figure is built around an armature made of wire, tape, and newspaper.  This created the form that the plasticine could attach to and be supported by.  I'd say it's about 2 feet tall.

The hand is about life size.  It is made of plasticine as well, but without an armature.  It is based of of my own hand, but changed a little.

Napoli

For my Baroque Art History Class, we went to Napoli (Naples) for two days.


Only since 1861 has Italy existed as a unified country.  Before that, what we know as Italy was a collection of small city-states ruled by different people.  They were like different countries.  During the Baroque, Naples was ruled by a Spanish viceroy.  The art scene was cut-throat.


One such commission was the chapel of San Gennaro in the Cathedral of Naples.  San Gennaro is the patron Saint of Naples (though the Roman Catholic Church does not recognize him as a saint there isn't enough proof that he existed).  The Neapolitans firmly believe in their patron saint. San Gennaro was born in 250 AD.  He was martyred just outside of Naples.  First, he was thrown into an arena with lions and bears, but the animals did not attack him.  Then he was thrown into a wood burning oven, but he walked out of the oven unharmed.  Finnally, San Gennaro was decapitated.  His head and two viles of blood were taken to the Cathedral in Naples, where they are kept in the treasury as the prized relics of Naples.


The viles of blood had dried solid shortly after San Gennaro's death.  When they reached the Cathedral though, the blood liquefied again.  This miracle happens three times a year.  On the day the relics arrived (the first Saturday in May), Sept 19th (the anniversary of the execution), and Dec 6th (the day San Gennaro flew across the sky with an outstretched arm to stop the threatened eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1631),  the relics are taken out of the treasury behind the alter and shaken for the crowds to see.  The superstition is that if the solid material in the viles does not liquefy, the city will have a year of bad luck.  Neapolitans will shout and spit on the viles until the material inside turns to liquid.  Of course, the priests shake the viles until the material liquefies.


Recently, scientists from the rival city of Milan created an experiment where they demonstrated how certain minerals from the soil of Naples could settle with water in the viles in such a way that would turn from a solid to a liquid with agitation.  The material in the viles has the color of chocolate milk.  The Neapolitans are very against having the relics tested by scientists in any way.  The belief in San Gennaro is such a part of their local culture.  San Gennaro helps people win the lottery, protects from the constant threat of Mount Vesuvius, and the miracle of the liquefaction of the blood is a symbol of the doomed city that always rises again.  Many Neapolitans name their sons Gennaro.


In the Baroque, the Cathedral was decorating the chapel of San Gennaro with the best art they could get.  Many foreign artists went to Napoli for the competition.  Dominicino was one such artist.  He was rivals with the local Neapolitan artist Ribera, who was part of a gang of local artists.  When Dominicino first arrived in Naples in the Baroque, his assistant was murdered, and Dominicino fled for his life.  He returned some years after to work on the altarpieces for the chapel of San Gennaro.  He didn't finish two of the oil paintings because he was poisoned in 1641; he was probably poisoned by the local Neapolitan artist gang.  Ribera then got the opportunity to paint that last altarpiece, which in this video is the final painting I filmed, showing San Gennaro walking out of the furnace.  It's strange to think that this religious painting was completed by the artist due to a murder that artist had a hand in.  The treasury depicted in this video is one of the richest church treasuries in the world.  All the busts of saints you see are made of pure silver and each hold a relic of the saint they depict.



Naples is a rough city.  Under the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, the city lives in constant threat of doom.  The streets are more narrow and crowded than Rome.  The city has an unemployment rate of 40%.  The majority of these unemployed live with their parents, but many live on the streets.  There are stray dogs everywhere, and many homeless walk around the city with a personal pack of dogs that follow them and sleep with them.  Theft is a large problem in Naples because of this high unemployment rate.  The local mafia doesn't help matters with their shoot-outs in back alleys.  Many Neapolitan churches gave their famous paintings by such artists as Caravaggio to museums, to protect the paintings from theft.


While Naples has poor living conditions, it does have amazing food.  Legend has it that pizza was invented in Naples, and they take their pizza seriously.  The highest quality mozzarella cheese is made from the milk of water buffaloes, and must be eaten on the day it's made for the best flavor and texture.  The local seafood is also fresh and rich.  There is no way I could possibly explain how good the food tasted here in this blog.  Playing cards / Tarot cards originated in Naples during the Renaissance.  Naples is known for it's folk music and songs.  Local symbols include the red horn of fertility which also protects from the evil eye of envy, and Pulcinella.


Pulcinella represents the spirit of Naples.  He is a clown dressed in white with a black mask.  Pulcinella is a rascal and a trickster.  He is clever and manipulative, but also melancholic and philosophical.  Pulcinella lives a tough life, but he gets by with his wit.  He also has a sense of humor.  "He will eat lunch with a friend, but get his friend excited and talking so that Pulcinella can sneakily eat his friend's pasta".  Pulcinella symbolizes the city, and warns that you always have to be careful and aware of what's happening around you.

I did not take this image.  I found it through Google.  I didn't take my digital camera to Naples
 but I did take my film camera and the small video camera.  I had nothing stolen from me.

This is a video of what it was like to walk around the streets of Naples with my class.





I found this Race for the Cure event.  Instead of biking through the city, the participants are "spinning" and being coached onward by some very fit Italians.  




Naples has a very different feel from Rome.  It is not a tourist city like Rome is.  Naples was exciting for sure.  I only touched on a small part of the trip.  There was so much more and so many experiences, I wouldn't be able to write about them all.

A lesson and drawings

This is a lesson I learned 2 weeks ago, that I'd like to pass on.

Some friends and I went on a day trip to Viterbo, a city outside of Rome. We go there by train, and the city was ripe for exploring. However, the part of the adventure that most sticks out in my mind was when we went to an “Aperativo” for food before getting on the train to head back. An Aperativo roughly translates as a buffet. Bars set them up in the evening. For a set price, you can get one drink and choose what you want to eat from the buffet of freshly cooked food.

Word about these Aperativos spread through Temple students some weeks ago. They are a popular looking meal option because of the buffet style. At first glance, it seems like an excellent way to eat as much as you could want with a minimum price. However, things are not as simple as they seem…

Some Aperativos have the customer pay the set price before picking out the food. This Aperativo gave us the check after we ate. When we looked at the check, we were shocked and confused. What should have been a bill of 35 euros for everyone total, was 60 euros. We weren’t sure why this was. Our waitress had said something to one of the members of our group, suggesting that we order more drinks because we had “eaten too much”. We didn’t know what she meant at the time, but later it all fit together…

When we asked the waitress why we were charged so much, she explained that is was because we had eaten so much from the buffet. Yes, the Aperativo only charges a low flat rate for access to the buffet, but Italian buffet culture is different from American buffet culture. In Italy, the buffet is not ‘all you can eat’. Instead, there is an unspoken rule that you can go back for seconds, but not thirds or fourths. This cultural rule is enforced by the honor system. There is no set amount of food allotted, but there is a cultural understanding about what is too much to take. The Aperativo is seen as a snacking place, not a "stuff yourself of all the food you can eat" place. Italian culture is not used to American stomachs and appetite.

My friend Andrew realized, immediately after the waitress explained it, what was happening. He said basically “We are in the wrong with eating all that food and expecting to pay the flat 5 euro rate. This is the way their culture works, and we have to abide by their culture because we live here”. We payed the extra. I feel that it is very important to be as aware as possible about the culture of the place you are living in. We are guests here in Italy, and it is not our place to impose our culture. It is not our place to eat like ravenous college students at an Aperativo. I realized then how much small cultural differences can really make a foreign country a very alien place to live if you aren't familiar with the specifics of the culture. I was also amazed at the many cultural differences between Italian and American culture. There are more differences than I expected there to be, and many I haven’t learned about yet.

These are two drawings I did today. My drawings and paintings here are very different from my previous work, but they are related. I'm still working from direct observation but I'm letting chance play a much larger role in my work than I ever had before. An example of that is in the inks I'm using here. My drawings now have a focus on line and texture that is very different from the marks I've made before. These drawings really highlight that. I did the first one in the morning at around 11:00am. The second one was done around 6:00pm. I'm experiencing very rapid change in the way I'm working and looking. It's exciting and I'm enjoying my drawing more.

The Great Soup Making Adventure

So yesterday, my friend Luca and I decided to make soup in the painting studio.  The studio has a hot plate for cooking up rabbit skin glue to prime canvas with.  Sometimes people cook food on it, but my professor, Susan Moore, said no one did that last year.  I bought a pot, and have been making pasta in the studio for lunches for a while.  It's nice to be able to make some hot food right there at school when you are craving something.


The soup making was lots of fun, especially the part where we had to improvise from the tools we had in the studio.  These are the steps for cooking soup in a painting studio:


Step 1:  Wash hands. thoroughly.  Use exacto knife left in studio from previous year to chop vegetables.  Use an abandoned book of Italian poetry as a cutting board (it doesn't have any paint or dirt on it, so it should be fine).

Step 2:  Admire the still life set up you have created.  Looks like Dutch influence to me...

Step 3:  It's evening, so you can admire the light coming through the window shutters, called serrandas in Italian.

Step 4:  Notice how the floor has a similar pattern to the soup mixture (or to the well used hot plate).

Step 5:  Let the soup simmer for about half and hour.

Step 6:  Place the finished soup in cheap Tupperware you bought in the supermarket for 50 euro cents each.  They mostly act as bowls.  Enjoy your hard earned meal!  Supplement with water.

The soup adventure was exciting, and some really good tasting food came out of it.  I remembered why I like cooking with other people, and how half the fun of cooking is the challenge and suspense of not knowing how it will be completed or how it will turn out.  I highly suggest more people cook in the studio.

Vatican Museums

For both my Baroque and High Renaissance class, we were assigned to go to the Vatican Museums on our own.  Yesterday, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and go see everything.


The day really started when I bought a kilo of prickly pear cactus fruit from Sicily at the market this morning.  It is the season for cactus fruit on the island, and they are everywhere in the market.  They are called "Fichi di India" which means "figs from India".  I really didn't know what they would be like, so I bought a bunch.  Well, they have tiny microscopic spikes on the outside skin that embedded themselves in my fingers.  The inside is filled with hundreds of hard seeds that are not chew-able.  The flesh of the fruit is on the outside of the seeds and right under the skin.  I had reserved a ticket to the Vatican Museums online to avoid lines. After I printed the ticket out at school I started walking there while unsuccessfully eating my cactus fruit, pocketknife in hand to remove the spiky skin.


When I got to the museum, the first thing I noticed was the metal detectors and x-ray machines everyone was going through.  I thought to myself "There is no way I'm going to be able to get through here with this pocketknife", so I dropped it off in my apartment and returned to the Vatican.  Security was extremely lax though.  The man in front of me set off the metal detector, but the guard didn't even make eye contact with him.  The man looking at the x-ray machine didn't seem to be paying much attention to it.  I probably could have gotten in with my pocketknife just fine, though it's better to be safe than sorry.

Not staged, though it would look good on a brochure.

The Vatican is a very different place than how I imagined it.  Vatican City is not really a city.  Only the Pope and a few other Vatican officials live inside the city walls.  Mostly, it is a church and museum complex.  The gift shop system was extensive, with stands all through the museum selling rosaries, medals, postcards, books, and Pope John Paul II related objects.  He was a very popular pope, his image dominates the merchandise.


The Vatican Museums are huge, and only cover a portion of all the opulence the Vatican has.  I couldn't see everything despite the fact that I was there for hours.  Halls and rooms are filled with frescoes, tapestries, gold ornamentation, busts, papal clothing, marble statues, oil paintings, icons, manuscripts and more.




The majority of the guards were texting on their cell phones.  It was kind of comical to watch them.

I think my favorite part was the Vatican's collection of ancient Roman and Greek statues.  The art collections of the Vatican were a status symbol, and during the renaissance, it became very popular to collect ancient marble sculptures.    The Vatican has the largest collection of sculptures from Greek and Roman antiquity in the world.

A small sample of a fraction of the sculptures the Vatican owns:

This is a portrait bust of Hadrian's favorite lover, Antinous.  When Antinous died at a young age, Hadrian made him into a Roman god and built temples in his honor.

The Vatican also owns many paintings that surprised me.  These are details from a series of paintings depicting big cats:

I liked the time of day I was at the Vatican, and would love to go back there sometime soon.  I couldn't photograph in the Sistine Chapel, but it was a disorienting experience.  The ceiling and walls are covered with paintings of people and bodies.  Michelangelo's Last Judgment is a sea of writhing chaotic humans.  Then on top of that, the ground floor where you walk is likewise, a sea of chaotic humans.  I couldn't really look at the ceiling easily because my attention was drawn immediately back down to eye level where I was bumping up against tourists from all over the world.  I want to go back and get a chance to really spend time with some of the pieces of artwork that I didn't get a chance to see for long, such as Raphael's School of Athens painting.  It was a great experience.