Pinacoteca di Brera

On Wednesday we visited the Brera Museum called Pinacoteca di Brera. There are a lot of old Italian paintings related to the church, as well as a small portion of early 20th century paintings, and other paintings following the Renaissance. 

Two paintings especially stood out for me, both depicting Jesus at a supper. One was "Supper at Emmaus" by Caravaggio. The dramatic lighting effects that he implemented (called chiaroscuro, where there seems to be one light source creating dramatic contrasts in the image) lends much gravitas to most of his works. Another painting that stood out was Peter Paul Ruebens painting of the last supper. This one contrasted with the Leonardo version that I saw the previous day. One interesting element that I enjoyed is that Judas, Jesus' betrayer, is looking out at the viewer, almost as if he is the focal point of the painting.

Other interesting paintings I saw were of St. Francis by one of my favorite painters, Dominico Theotocopolous, otherwise known as El Greco. His paintings stand out for me because he had a very unique style that cannot be placed in one school or another. That said, this small painting was not one of his finer ones. Although I would have liked to buy a postcard of the painting, the museum did not have one, and even in their souvenir book, it was not included.

One final painting that stopped me for a few moments was a painting of St. Jerome by Jusepe Ribera, a painter I had never heard of. It was in the same room as the Caravaggio, perhaps because it helps illustrate the influence that Caravaggio and his chiaroscuro style had on other painters. However, the image of a frail old man staring at a skull he holds in his hands forced me to sit down and stare at the painting for several minutes.

Another side effect of going to an art museum with many different people is that many different opinions are heard about good art and bad art, and what art is supposed to be, and what artists are supposed to be doing. I find it humorous that non-artists would have such strong opinions on what another person's job is, especially never having performed that job themselves. I also find it humorous when people offer their strong opinions as if they were the last word on the subject, especially when it comes to modern art, and with claims that this period of art was far superior to that period, and the peaks and valleys that the evaluative quality of art has experienced through history. It seems to me that for any proper evaluation of art, or anything for that matter, one must look at the work in context of its place and its creation in history and location and social context. Rarely do I hear people talk about this; instead, it is "this looks ugly," or "This looks beautiful." Surely those are some of the reasons to enjoy art, and if one only focuses on what he finds beautiful, he may have a wonderful life. However, there is also so much more to explore within paintings, music, architecture, sculpture, and everything else. And so it seems to me that when I ask more questions about this or that, or explore curiosities a little deeper, there may be much more that can be enjoyed. 

Leonardo's "Last Supper"

We returned to Milan after spending the weekend in Tuscany. The drive was long and I was lucky enough to get the driver's side back-seat while driving north in the afternoon. This means that the sun was beating down on me the whole trip. It would have been cooler to drive with the windows open, but the air conditioner was on, and that seemed to suit the people in the front seats just fine. After refusing to for some time, I resorted to wearing a big brimmed woman's hat that blocked the sun very well. In any case, we got to Milan in one piece after a three and a half hour car ride.

Recovering from that ride, we didn't do anything on Monday. But on Tuesday we went to a church called Santa Maria delle Grazie. The church is certainly interesting enough, but the crown jewel of this church is the "Last Supper" by Leonardo da Vinci. The painting is not in the main church, but rather, is in the old convent. Apparently, during World War II, bombing had destroyed the building, and all the walls fell, except this one. Perhaps this was divine intervention.

They only allow twenty-five people to come into the room at a time, and only for fifteen minutes. The time limit is enough time to look at the "Last Supper" and one other painting on the opposite wall of Christ's crucifixion by a painter whose name I forget, and whose claim to fame just might be to have a the only other painting in the room with the "Last Supper." As I was lead into the room, we stop first in a glass covered space with electronic doors, where twenty-five people fit snugly. We wait there for a few minutes, and then are led into another room just the same. It felt as though we were entering a bank vault.

Having never been here before, I had expectations as to what to I would see, having seen the room and the painting on television shows, or books, or other media. However, when I walked into the room, the painting was bigger, and lower, and closer than I had expected. This had the effect on me of a coming on strong and fast. I sat at a bench and contemplated the painting for a while. I can't remember what I thought, perhaps nothing. Maybe it was just an attitude of meditation that over took me.

They did not allow photos to be taken of the painting, so I have none. I still don't have a cable for my camera, so even if I did take a photo, I would not have been able to post it. That said, I feel justified in offering the photo above from another source. 

Tuscan Vineyard in Bolgheri

(I have misplaced the cable for the camera, so please wait for pictures.)

Today and yesterday my host showed me around the vineyard. There is, indeed, a lot of work that they do. He has a lot of farm land where the grapes grow. The area with the house is pretty big, too. There are two houses, one big, and one small. When I had first come here in 2005, the land owners were living in the big house, and the winemakers had to live in the smaller home Now, the land owners have moved out, and the winemakers live in the bigger space, and the smaller space is left for storage. Even the big house can be divided into two apartments. He and his wife have collected a lot of art and things like this, and their home is decorated very nicely. However, because they are running the business out of the house, clutter can also collect, even though they have a separate office in the home.

In addition to the two houses, there is a lot of space for equipment. There is an unpaved lot where they have to park the tractor, and that sort of stuff. There is another big building that is divided into two. One one side is a lot of storage for wine bottles and cases that are ready to be sold. On the other side are a lot of big machines where they make the wine, helping in the fermentation. They look like big cans of soda. Also, under the big house, they have a lot of room where barrels of wine are stored (it is basically a wine cellar) where the wine gets better with age. They are still building a lot more, too. They need one more building where they will store even more wine that is ready to be sold, and is currently housed at a rented warehouse in a different location.

It would be interesting to learn the business, but it would take up a whole life. When one wants to go into business, there is nothing easy about it, and any free time would have to be devoted to the business. In fact, in the little free time we had here so far, clients came over, and they had to be hosted. A couple from Belgium made an appointment that was forgotten, but as luck would have it, the Belgians arrived before they made their way to go out the door. Later that same night we hosted a client from Switzerland over dinner. Although they were Swiss, they have a summer home in a near-by village. There is always work, and hosting. With two people running the business, and maybe one very important employee, there is a lot of divided responsibilities, and the three of them seem to do everything!

Mont Blanc

Today we travelled to Mont Blanc, also called Monte Bianco, which both mean white mountain. It is the highest point in Europe, and serves as the border between Italy and France. One one side of the mountain sits the Italian town of Courmayeur, and on the other side is the French town of Chamonix. In fact, there is a cable car that connects these two cities by going over the mountain range, and is supposed to offer a beautiful view of the scenery. However, by the time we got there, the cable car was closed because they deemed it unsafe due to high winds. We thought that there might be a chance that they open the cable car again after the winds die down, so we sat down and had lunch, closely watching the trees bending, and hoping that they would sit still for a while. We thought it had calmed down enough, but the people who run the cable car disagreed.

In order to get to the other side, then, we had to drive. It so happens that there is a tunnel that cuts right through the mountain for 11 thousand kilometers. Because of terrible accidents that have happened in the past, there are strict speed limits, and requirements to maintain 150 meters of distance between you and the car in front of you. The drive takes about ten minutes, so it is not so bad. Although I am not claustrophobic, the idea of being in a tunnel like caused a little anxiety, until I considered that on a typical commute in New York, I am in a tunnel for about an hour.

The town of Chamonix was very charming, and even though there were many modern stores and shops, there were enough old style buildings to remind one that he was in a French mountain town. Not being acquainted with this sort of environment, I even caught myself thinking that this place looked like Disneyland; but it is Disneyland that looks like Chamonix.

After checking the cable car on the French end and learning that they wouldn't allow people to ride because of winds either (we thought that maybe the French might be more liberal than the Italians in their evaluation of the winds), we decided to take a train up to see the Mer de Glace glacier. The pictures at the bottom made it look as though it was an amazing site with a glacier that really did look like a sea of glass, but when we arrived, the glacier was very underwhelming. Perhaps it was due to the summer, or even global warming, but most of the ice of the glacier simply looked like dirt, with a small ice floe. The location where the train dropped us off was high above the glacier, and was surrounded by amazing peaks, which made up for the small glacier.

I was inclined to go down to the glacier, and do some exciting mountain hiking, but when we actually saw the people who were already down there, they looked like ants, so it was not as close as I had thought. Plus, I was with people who did not seem so interested to go on a hiking excursion. Next time I will remember to bring my hiking boots and tent. 

Lake Como and Lugano

Today we drove a bit north, to two places. The first was to Lake Como. the lake is shaped like a big inverted Y. There are many villages all around the lake, and while driving around, we stayed near the shore. It seems that many of these villages are situation so that there is not a lot of space to walk along the lake. Where ever there is space along the shore of the lake, someone has built an extravagant house or villa. 

One person who has a villa here is George Clooney. I didn't think that it would be a big deal to see his place, but once we found it, I did feel a short burst of being star struck. There was no one else treating his home like a tourist destination, and I am sure that all the locals are aware of the celebrity status of his home (in fact, in order to maintain peace with the locals, a law was passed against looking at his home for more than five minutes), so I felt a bit embarrassing when I noticed locals walking along the narrow road beside his villa.

A short ride from Lake Como is Switzerland. Not too far into Switzerland is another lake town called Lugano. Because Switzerland is not in the European Union, I was looking forward to getting my passport stamped. Because the border is so commonly traversed, however, the immigration officials don't bother stamping everyone's passport, so I was sad for about a minute.

It turns out that south of the Alps, the mountains that offer a natural division of Switzerland, everyone speaks Italian, and so Lugano seemed like an Italian town, but much more modern, and without much of the historical architecture that a comparable Italian town might have. As a result, Lugano lacked a certain charm I might have expected. One redeeming feature, however, that was not present at Lake Como was development around the lake that allowed tourists to walk along the water. The shops that were in the main town center were dominated by expensive stores, especially those catering to watches. It can be fun to look at watches that cost more than cars. 

Verona Arena Opera

The highlight of the night, and a primary purpose for going to Verona was to see the opera Aida by Giuseppe Verdi. As I had mentioned earlier, there are opera performances in Milan. In fact, arguably the greatest opera house in the world, La Scala, is in Milan. However, one amazing feature of Verona is the ancient Roman arena. It has been a tradition for some time that they perform operas in this arena during the summer. Being in an open space like this, certainly it is does not have the best acoustics, but it is able to present a spectacle not possible in other theaters.

One cannot argue with the music of Verdi, being a master of the operatic form, and the performances by the singers and the conductor and orchestra where wonderful and clear, even in the open air space. The choreographer made use of many dancers and the chorus, and extra performers on the stage to create an amazing show for people like us who were sitting so high in the marble seats of the arena. Because I now produce and direct operas (in addition to composing them), I now watch operas with a different eye, and pay attention to many of the finer details.

One small criticism I have is that there were big breaks in the show that were not intermissions. These breaks were to rearrange the stage for scene changes. Because this arena is not a modern theater, they do not have many of the advantages of stage and set that theaters typically have, and so they had to take their time for scene changes. Perhaps another director would have worked within these limitations differently, and the audience would have (I think) understood that the production would have had to work within these limitations, and would have been understanding when the production did not resemble that of a modern opera house. Another curious feature that I was not accustomed to was that there would be a break after each aria for the singers to bow and show appreciation to the audience. Perhaps this is how they do things in Italy, so I cannot criticize this.

All in all, it was a great production that did justice for to the great opera and composer. 

Verona

After a two hour drive from Milan, today was spent in Verona. It is a very pleasant city, however there are many tourists. Along the many strip, there are many fashionable stores to get the tourists to spend their money. I have to be reminded that everyone does not live in New York, and thus might not have access to these stores back home. Because I live in New York, however, I do not feel the need to spend any money on things that I can just as easily get at home. Perhaps there is some degree of exoticism in buying a fancy shirt in Italy.

While the main strip was very crowded, one did not need to walk too far into the side streets to be alone and find charming gems. Of course there were the medieval churches that had art spanning from the early 11th century to the later Renaissance and beyond. One that struck me was the church of the Holy Resurrection, or San Anastasia. The reason this church appealed to me is because sometime in its history, it developed a relationship with St. George, and so there were two images of the saint standing over the slain dragon. I always appreciate and look for the many different ways St. George is portrayed, as if I have some relation to the legend in virtue of my name.

Another curious attraction in fair Verona, where we lay our scene... with all the admired beauties of Verona, is a balcony that local lore claims is the actual balcony, where Juliet called, "O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou, Romeo?" I found it astounding that a from a work of fiction, one would claim that this is the one and same balcony that Shakespeare wrote about 500 years ago. They even have a small plaque where they lay out their argument. They claim that a family, Capullo, which certainly must be the same as Capulet, owned this home, and this is the only balcony in the whole city which matches the description and time period that Shakespeare wrote. However, a quick glance at the famous scene from Romeo and Juliet will reveal that there is no description of any balcony, but instead the directions say that she comes from a window. Further, the scene is set in Capulet's orchard, where one would expect plants and vegetables to be growing on the ground, and not the small, enclosed stone space where we were. Even in fair Verona, we can see that people would take advantage of the dreams and romanticism of tourists.

Perhaps my cynical side has been revealed too much in this argument. However, I do not want to lead one to believe that I do not appreciate the romanticism of Juliet's Balcony. Whether the real Juliet actually spoke Shakespeare's words from this spot is not relevant. What is relevant is the hopes, dreams, and ideals of each individual who comes here, just for a glance of where true love may have blossomed in the face of a reality whose only purpose seemed to be to strike it down and crush it; to be where two lovers had the passion to discard this reality and strive to make the substance of the world conform to their inner most heart.