(Almost) Full Moon Over Lago di Garda

 






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Fuseli Show at Musee Jacquemart-Andre

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 Such a great place in general (more to see in the next post) but the Fuseli show was amazing. Spelled Fussli in Europe, he's the guy that painted "The Nightmare," and that's about all I knew about him. Turns out, he's fascinating. A Swiss artist who came from an artistic family who became a pastor and, of course, moved to London to become a famous painter. As I was looking at his psychologically weird canvases, I thought, "He's a lot like William Blake." Turns out, they were friends. So enjoy some sights of this dramatic, emotive painter. Fuseli had a fetish for women and women's hair. This is Dido dying after being abandoned by Aeneas, and this is a spirit cutting off her hair, which contains the last of her soul. "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble." This is a fragment of a painting where this guy is a giant who is intimidated by big, bad Thor, who's beating the hell out of a giant serpent. (There'...
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Ai Wei Wei in San Giorgio Maggiore

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 Another brutal and beautiful installation, La Commedia Umana , by Ai Wei Wei . It's astonishing, ornate, somber and completely gorgeous in a macabre way. It's perfectly sited in this large cathedral and looks to both the local glass industry and to the black devotional objects that are in the presbytery. Crafted in black Murano glass over the past three years, it's a major work art. Ai Wei Wei also worked on other pieces of glass while in Murano, including a very clever self portrait that shows him a combination Buddha/Mao. Here are some other works from his Venetian series in glass. I particularly liked the black fish, which I believe has his features, but not distinct enough to take away from the fish. And finally, the lego works, which he has been working on for years, part painting pastiche, part sculpture, part mechanical art, they are completely delightful.
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Masterworks at Musee Jacquemart-Andre

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 This was a Beaux-Arts mansion owned by a rich couple who loved to collect art. (She was a talented society painter who painted the banking heir. They got married and indulged their love of art.) Not only did they collect an astonishing array of simply world-class paintings, the house itself is fascinating. The walls surrounding the ballroom were engineered to sink into the basement to make it even bigger. It's a testament to the power of money, certainly. Here are some of the many, many paintings. Tiepolo... Bellini... Mantegna... Rembrandt. I thought there was a Giorgione, but I missed it this trip. I think they built an elaborate staircase just to show off this magnificent fresco. Notice how the legs of the little person in the lower right-hand corner extend beyond the "frame." The Jacquemart-Andre's even cut out the marble surround to highlight this. Paolo Uccello is a crowd pleaser. He was early, early Renaissance who did a lot of technical perspective work. Hi...
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