The Florence Studio
Near piazza del Limbo, light pours in to The Florence Studio, an inspiring space where husband-wife team Frank Rekrut and Laura Thompson produce original work and help local and international students to hone their painting and sculpting techniques.
Will populist politics undo a renaissance at Italy's top museums?
(13 Aug 2019) LEAD IN:
The Uffizi Galleries in Florence have been experiencing an exciting renaissance since radical reforms granted Italy's top state-run museums considerable autonomy and allowed foreigners at the helm.
Over the last four years, revenues have been climbing and visitor numbers are up, but the current populist government wants change - it's now bringing the decision-making power back to Rome, prompting fear that the vibrancy of Italy's museums will be stilted.
STORY-LINE:
Ingenious makeovers of rooms full of superstar paintings, like Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus', are wowing tourists in Florence.
But barely four years after reforms allowed museums more freedom to run themselves, populist politics are roiling Italy's art world.
A cultural counter-reformation is looming that threatens to undo museum autonomy and concentrate purse-strings and power back in bureaucratic Rome.
It means museum directors might soon not have such a free hand and some in the cadre of bold, new directors, hired under a previous, centre-left government, are bolting, while others are in limbo.
At least three of the seven foreign directors that came on board are leaving at the end of their four-year contracts in October.
The Uffizi's dynamic German director, Eike Schmidt - the first-ever foreigner to head Italy's biggest-drawing museum - is among those leaving.
While Schmidt wouldn't elaborate on why he's leaving his post, other foreign colleagues blamed a combination of nationalist sentiment, entrenched bureaucratic mentalities and Italians' penchant for last-minute decisions for their own imminent departures.
The reform of the museums ruled by the Italian minister of cultural Heritage, Alberto Bonisoli will decrease the powers of the directors of the main Italian museums with the aim of having a closer control on costs and international loans of artworks.
The reform will create a central entity which will be solely entitled to issue public tenders for new infrastructure, more modern showcases, disabled access, communication and exhibitions.
From now on, the formerly plenipotential manager-directors will have to pass through further scrutiny of the ministry, with high concerns about a massive slowdown of the decision making process.
The Ministry of Culture in Italy has seen nine reforms in recent years, says Schmidt.
And all the previous eight ones always gave some more power, if in one way or another, to regional and local structure. This is the first one which indeed is in counter-tendency by strengthening the centre, the administration in Rome.
Thanks to his autonomy, Schmidt was able to bring more than four million visitors into the Uffizi galleries last year - an increase of 6 percent compared with 2017.
The 34 million-euro profits were used for maintenance, to renovate displays and to buy new pieces.
Masterpieces were put safely behind nearly invisible double-glass. It meant museum-goers could now get right up close to the display cases.
Where Caravaggio's 'Medusa' had long been in a hallway, now it is the star of a room dedicated to the master, catching the eye of the visitors and drawing them in.
There were always barriers, so you couldn't really get very close to this, says Schmidt.
The new technology permits people to really walk up very close to the painting and sometimes they touch the glass with their noses, and we see that every morning because every morning it's being cleaned, and we have several nose marks on the glass.
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Michelangelo's Holy Family moved to new room in Uffizi Gallery
Michelangelo's The Holy Family, the famous round painting that resides in the Uffizi Gallery, has found a new home in the Florence... Read the post on Florence Daily News (Video taken from Polo museale degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy)
Among Rare Men: Bronzino and Homoerotic Culture at the Medici Court
Learn more about this exhibition: The Drawings of Bronzino on view at the Met January 20, 2010 - April 18, 2010:
A lecture by Lisa Kaborycha, Fellow, National Endowment for the Humanities
Introduction by Carmen Bambach, curator, Drawings and Prints, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
This exhibition is the first ever dedicated to Agnolo Bronzino (1503 - 1572), and presents nearly all the known drawings by or attributed to this leading Italian Mannerist artist, who was active primarily in Florence. A painter, draftsman, academician, and enormously witty poet, Bronzino became famous as the court artist to the Duke Cosimo I de' Medici and his beautiful wife, the Duchess Eleonora di Toledo. This monographic exhibition contains approximately sixty drawings from European and North American collections, many of which have never before been on public view.
Nina Maroccolo & Globoscuro - Partiture Vegetali
© 2016
Nina Maroccolo & Globoscuro - Partiture Vegetali
The music is a fragment taken from the live improvisation for theremin, synth and voice performed by Globoscuro and Nina Maroccolo during the artistic event Macerazioni - photo exhibition by Nina Maroccolo which took place at the Immaginaria Arti Visive Gallery in Florence, Italy on September 3rd 2016 and masterfully introduced by the great poet and art critic Plinio Perilli.
During the same event the poets Lucia Guidorizzi, Helene Paraskeva and Enea Roversi have enriched the evening with their enchanting and uplifting poetry readings!!!!
.....La deriva della materia non è mai deriva vera. Esiste uno stadio intermedio che comprende un limbo: il divenire dell’inverno verso la primavera, limbo/oblio della contraddizione, dove tutto si macera e si distilla. E si consuma nella lentezza, ne conosce il deterioramento, l’essiccamento, il distacco. Il sentimento di finitudine accoglie il principio del cambiamento, ogni atto chimico-organico | purgatoriale | rende mortali le spoglie di un albero, le sue radiche, le foglie remote e dimorfe. Tutto si consuma nel basso, tra le acque livide e paludose. Uno sguardo tra il sentire di ciò che è stato e ciò che È. Un reliquiario di natura che diventa anche privato nell’esperienza di detriti pulviscolari, i quali agiscono dentro l’apparente stagnarsi delle cose. Le Macerazioni sono necessarie, ci portano alla consapevolezza di piccole grandi verità che eguagliano Natura e Uomo. Ed è raro. E non è lieve. Forse a macerarsi sono i nostri rami prosciugati, le vecchie mute, i reduci sonetti che nel canto e nella trasparenza ritmica ci portano al setticlavio delle partiture vegetali. Ciò che può reclamare un violoncello nei suoi sublimi armonici ...
© Nina Maroccolo (La Natura è l'unità di misura dell'umano)
music and video: Globoscuro (Emiliano Pietrini)
lyrics, voice and photo-art: Nina Maroccolo
live recordings: Mägdälenä Djurdjevic
Mortal Veil by Michelangelo
LdM students help curators from Casa Buonarroti exhibit Michelangelo’s “Velo Mortale.’ The exhibition explores the different components of Michelangelo's drawings and studies of the human body.
EXHIBITION ON SCREEN Michelangelo and David | Clip 1
An exclusive excerpt from the upcoming film from Season 4 of EXHIBITION ON SCREEN, Michelangelo: Love and Death.
Francesca Nicoli from the Laboratori Artistici Nicoli discusses the creation of one of the most renowned sculptures in the world - Michelangelo's David.
Michelangelo: Love and Death, directed by David Bickerstaff and shot in Ultra HD 4K, releases internationally from 13 Jun 2017.
exhibitiononscreen.com
Will populist politics undo a renaissance at Italy's Uffizi Gallery?
(13 Aug 2019) WILL POPULIST POLITICS UNDO A RENAISSANCE AT ITALY'S UFFIZI GALLERY?
The Uffizi Gallery in Florence has experienced its own renaissance thanks to administrative changes that have given Italy's top state-run museums greater autonomy.
Under the dynamic direction of Eike Schmidt, the Uffizi has seen renewal, rave reviews and soaring revenues. Rooms were reworked to better show off important pieces by Renaissance artists Botticelli, Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.
To protect the masterpieces, the museum installed new glass protective screens, specially made to keep prized pieces such as Botticelli's Spring and Birth of Venus safe from vandals.
But the nearly invisible barriers also had an added bonus, Schmidt, noted with delight: with guard ropes no longer needed, visitors could get closer to the art.
Sometimes they touch the glass with their noses, Schmidt, a German art historian who in 2015 became the first foreigner to lead the Uffizi, said as museumgoers strolled behind him. We see that every morning, because every morning it's being cleaned (and) we have several nose marks on the glass.
But is the Uffizi's renaissance - and similarly fruitful periods at other Italian museums - coming to an end?
The populist government that took office in Italy last year and rising nationalist sentiment are roiling the country's state-run museums.
Reforms enacted in 2014 by a liberal-leaning government granted many of the venerable but sometimes fusty institutions considerable autonomy. What's been described as a cultural counter-reformation threatens to again centralize the approval of expenditures and to put decision-making authority back in the hands of the bureaucracy in Rome.
The 2014 revisions also allowed non-Italians and candidates from outside the heavily bureaucratic state system to apply for directorships at 20 leading museums, a change intended to give merit precedence over nationality and civil service status.
Schmidt wouldn't have been in position to carry out his vision for the Uffizi without it. But he and at least two other foreign museum directors, out of the seven who were hired under the new eligibility criteria, plan to leave when their four-year contracts end in October. Others are in limbo.
Schmidt noted that the trend in Italy during the last two decades gave more power, in one way or another to regional or local museums.
Now, however, there is tension between supporters of that strategy and those favoring a counter-tendency, by strengthening the center, the administration in Rome.
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“Michelangelo’s” Crucifix at Santo Spirito
Anyone who ventures into Santo Spirito church will find a stunning wooden crucifix by Michelangelo. But there is mystery behind it; why it was made, how it was found and whether it is even by the great master himself. LdM News was given a rare chance to film it.
Uffizi - the new Michelangelo Room
In January 2013, the Uffizi revealed an all new Room 35, housing Michelangelo's Doni Tondo on a striking red background.
Sabauda Gallery – Memling – Turin – Audio Guide – MyWoWo Travel App
You are now looking at one of the most unusual and attractive works of the Sabauda Gallery: Scenes from the Passion of Christ, painted by Hans Memling around 1470. Even though he was born in Germany, Memling became the most important painter of the second half of the 1400s in Bruges, the charming town of Flanders; at the time it was an important European commercial and financial center, and an artistic capital in full bloom.
With this inventive composition, Memling transforms the story of the Passion of Christ into a complete narrative! The painter has depicted many episodes of Jesus' last days, from the Last Supper to the Flagellation, from the kiss of Judas to the Resurrection and the Descent to Limbo, all gathered and set within a single city scene! At first glance, the painting might just look like a shrill landscape of figures, but once you get closer you'll note the different scenes, one after another.
The painting is set in an imaginary Jerusalem; if you think about it, the profiles of the palaces with spires and tall Gothic buildings look like any Flanders trade city of his time! In fact, at that time religion encouraged the faithful to personalize and actualize the events of Christ's life by transferring them into reality and the sphere of everyday life, as was done in mass with the popular and theatrical productions of the Mystery Plays.
With a great deal of imagination, Memling creates various spaces and environments inside and outside the city walls, placing the different scenes of the Passion of Jesus…
Visit the MyWoWo page dedicated to this wonder:
…and download the MyWoWo Travel App so you can listen to audio guides describing the world's most beautiful cities and all the wonders they have to offer.
Google Play (Android):
iTune (Apple):
MyWoWo is available in 7 languages!
Michelangelo - Infinito - Il trailer
Dopo lo straordinario successo di Caravaggio – l’Anima e il sangue e dagli stessi produttori, un’altra grande produzione cinematografica sta per approdare sul grande schermo: dal 4 al 10 ottobre arriva al cinema Michelangelo – Infinito, il nuovo film d’arte dedicato al genio dell’arte universale Michelangelo Buonarroti e alle sue opere immortali ed ‘infinite’.
Vasari's Lives of Piero di Cosimo and the Limits of a Teleological System
Vasari's Lives of Piero di Cosimo and the Limits of a Teleological System
Will populist politics undo a renaissance at Italy's top museums?
(13 Aug 2019) LEAD IN:
The Uffizi Galleries in Florence have been experiencing an exciting renaissance since radical reforms granted Italy's top state-run museums considerable autonomy and allowed foreigners at the helm.
Over the last four years, revenues have been climbing and visitor numbers are up, but the current populist government wants change - it's now bringing the decision-making power back to Rome, prompting fear that the vibrancy of Italy's museums will be stilted.
STORY-LINE:
Ingenious makeovers of rooms full of superstar paintings, like Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus', are wowing tourists in Florence.
But barely four years after reforms allowed museums more freedom to run themselves, populist politics are roiling Italy's art world.
A cultural counter-reformation is looming that threatens to undo museum autonomy and concentrate purse-strings and power back in bureaucratic Rome.
It means museum directors might soon not have such a free hand and some in the cadre of bold, new directors, hired under a previous, centre-left government, are bolting, while others are in limbo.
At least three of the seven foreign directors that came on board are leaving at the end of their four-year contracts in October.
The Uffizi's dynamic German director, Eike Schmidt - the first-ever foreigner to head Italy's biggest-drawing museum - is among those leaving.
While Schmidt wouldn't elaborate on why he's leaving his post, other foreign colleagues blamed a combination of nationalist sentiment, entrenched bureaucratic mentalities and Italians' penchant for last-minute decisions for their own imminent departures.
The reform of the museums ruled by the Italian minister of cultural Heritage, Alberto Bonisoli will decrease the powers of the directors of the main Italian museums with the aim of having a closer control on costs and international loans of artworks.
The reform will create a central entity which will be solely entitled to issue public tenders for new infrastructure, more modern showcases, disabled access, communication and exhibitions.
From now on, the formerly plenipotential manager-directors will have to pass through further scrutiny of the ministry, with high concerns about a massive slowdown of the decision making process.
The Ministry of Culture in Italy has seen nine reforms in recent years, says Schmidt.
And all the previous eight ones always gave some more power, if in one way or another, to regional and local structure. This is the first one which indeed is in counter-tendency by strengthening the centre, the administration in Rome.
Thanks to his autonomy, Schmidt was able to bring more than four million visitors into the Uffizi galleries last year - an increase of 6 percent compared with 2017.
The 34 million-euro profits were used for maintenance, to renovate displays and to buy new pieces.
Masterpieces were put safely behind nearly invisible double-glass. It meant museum-goers could now get right up close to the display cases.
Where Caravaggio's 'Medusa' had long been in a hallway, now it is the star of a room dedicated to the master, catching the eye of the visitors and drawing them in.
There were always barriers, so you couldn't really get very close to this, says Schmidt.
The new technology permits people to really walk up very close to the painting and sometimes they touch the glass with their noses, and we see that every morning because every morning it's being cleaned, and we have several nose marks on the glass.
Find out more about AP Archive:
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Facebook:
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Tumblr:
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NicoNote - AMARCORD
NicoNote AMARCORD appears in a 2013 Alphabe Dream album (Cinedelic CNCD29) niconote.net
Music: Mikael Plunian, NicoNote, Johannes Brahms
Lyrics: Raffaello Baldini
The poem is taken from 1938 by Raffaello Baldini / Einaudi
Vocals: NicoNote
Soundscapes: Mikael Pluinian
Recorded and mixed by Antonio Patanè at Merlin Studio, Rimini
Produced by NicoNote
NicoNote, is a world, a universe between music and performance.
An Italian Siren speaking Austrian. Not definable, she's a performer, dj selector, a director. Her path crosses many fields of the underground scenes in Italy and France.
She began in the eighty with a seminal new wave band Violet Eves playing also in France (La Cigale, Printemps de Bourges, Transmusicales) singing in english, french and italian and after moving into the theatre scene with Romeo Castellucci director of Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio with whom she plays in many international tournees. Inventor of unconventional spaces she collaborated during the ninety with the italian club Cocoricò creating the Morphine Room with dj David Love Calò.
She lead her own working group NicoNote Dream Action between Italy and France, in different frames in the world of music, performing arts, clubbing and entertainment, attending equally important festivals and venues (La Fonderìe Le Mans, Actoral Marseilles, TNB Rennes, vie Modena, MilanOltre), ramshackle bars, art galleries and foundations like The Fondation Cartier for contemporary arts in Paris, where she was invited at Le Soiree nomades.
ALPHABET DREAM is her album -- produced by NicoNote Dream Action and released by Cinedelic records with distribution Audioglobe .It contains materials coming from different performances, original songs and severals covers reworked in a very personal key , from Tuxedomoon to Henry Purcell, passing through to the italian poet Luigi Tenco and Robert Schumann or Eisler/Brecht.
The title track was composed with the french musician Mikael Plunian (Shane Cough, Fatale).
NicoNote has an independent spirit, visceral and refined at the same time. Evocative, lunar and melancholy her voice along with her charismatic presence, as a single body floating in the space of sound.
Dante Alighieri | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Dante Alighieri
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:
You can upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
Durante degli Alighieri (Italian: [duˈrante deʎʎ aliˈɡjɛːri]), commonly known by his short name Dante Alighieri or simply as Dante (Italian: [ˈdante]; English: , UK also ; c. 1265 – 1321), was a major Italian poet of the Late Middle Ages. His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedìa (modern Italian: Commedia) and later christened Divina by Giovanni Boccaccio, is widely considered the most important poem of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language.In the late Middle Ages, most poetry was written in Latin, accessible only to the most educated readers. In De vulgari eloquentia (On Eloquence in the Vernacular), however, Dante defended the use of the vernacular in literature. He would even write in the Tuscan dialect for works such as The New Life (1295) and the Divine Comedy; this highly unorthodox choice set a precedent that important later Italian writers such as Petrarch and Boccaccio would follow.
Dante was instrumental in establishing the literature of Italy, and his depictions of Hell, Purgatory and Heaven provided inspiration for the larger body of Western art. He is cited as an influence on John Milton, Geoffrey Chaucer and Alfred Tennyson, among many others. In addition, the first use of the interlocking three-line rhyme scheme, or the terza rima, is attributed to him. In Italy, he is often referred to as il Sommo Poeta (the Supreme Poet) and il Poeta; he, Petrarch, and Boccaccio are also called the three fountains or the three crowns.
Inferno (Dante) | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Inferno (Dante)
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:
You can upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
Inferno (pronounced [imˈfɛrno]; Italian for Hell) is the first part of Italian writer Dante Alighieri's 14th-century epic poem Divine Comedy. It is followed by Purgatorio and Paradiso. The Inferno tells the journey of Dante through Hell, guided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil. In the poem, Hell is depicted as nine concentric circles of torment located within the Earth; it is the realm ... of those who have rejected spiritual values by yielding to bestial appetites or violence, or by perverting their human intellect to fraud or malice against their fellowmen. As an allegory, the Divine Comedy represents the journey of the soul toward God, with the Inferno describing the recognition and rejection of sin.
Dante | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
Dante
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:
You can upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
Durante degli Alighieri (Italian: [duˈrante deʎʎ aliˈɡjɛːri]), commonly known by his short name Dante Alighieri or simply as Dante (Italian: [ˈdante]; English: , UK also ; c. 1265 – 1321), was a major Italian poet of the Late Middle Ages. His Divine Comedy, originally called Comedìa (modern Italian: Commedia) and later christened Divina by Giovanni Boccaccio, is widely considered the most important poem of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language.In the late Middle Ages, most poetry was written in Latin, accessible only to the most educated readers. In De vulgari eloquentia (On Eloquence in the Vernacular), however, Dante defended the use of the vernacular in literature. He would even write in the Tuscan dialect for works such as The New Life (1295) and the Divine Comedy; this highly unorthodox choice set a precedent that important later Italian writers such as Petrarch and Boccaccio would follow.
Dante was instrumental in establishing the literature of Italy, and his depictions of Hell, Purgatory and Heaven provided inspiration for the larger body of Western art. He is cited as an influence on John Milton, Geoffrey Chaucer and Alfred Tennyson, among many others. In addition, the first use of the interlocking three-line rhyme scheme, or the terza rima, is attributed to him. In Italy, he is often referred to as il Sommo Poeta (the Supreme Poet) and il Poeta; he, Petrarch, and Boccaccio are also called the three fountains or the three crowns.
List of Catholic artists | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
List of Catholic artists
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written
language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through
audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio
while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using
a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:
In case you don't find one that you were looking for, put a comment.
This video uses Google TTS en-US-Standard-D voice.
SUMMARY
=======
This list of Catholic artists concerns artists known, at least in part, for their works of religious Roman Catholic art. It may also include artists whose position as a Roman Catholic priest or missionary was vital to their artistic works or development. Because of the title, it is preferred that at least some of their artwork be in or commissioned for Catholic churches, which includes Eastern Catholic Churches in communion with the Pope.
Note that this is not a list of all artists who have ever been members of the Roman Catholic Church. Please do not add entries here without providing support for those artists having specifically Roman Catholic religious art among their works, or having Roman Catholicism as a major aspect in their careers as artists. Further, seeing as many to most Western European artists from the 5th century to the Protestant Reformation did at least some Catholic religious art, this list will supplement by linking to lists of artists of those eras rather than focusing on names of those eras.
London | street performers | National Gallery