View allAll Photos Tagged dissolute
After the "Baroque" nature of the last few images, "Silence" offers both a simpler and a more inward mood. This image is meant to convey a sense of contemplation and a kind of waiting. For answers? Possibly. For some kind of change? Likely. In the last image on the right ..... waiting dissolutely for the subway train on a lonely platform ...
The text in this piece is used as a formal visual element only. It's a form of drawing and isn't intended to symbolize or suggest meaning, same as the Loquacious Oblivious Rex series..
All three of the main images were either taken at night or at pre-dawn as the sky just begins to show the first shift in the east from the absolute dark of night to the coming of light. While still deep in the dark, the image then hints in a whisper of the arrival of hope. A metaphor for our very dark times.
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© Richard S Warner ( Visionheart ) - 2017. All Rights Reserved. This image is not for use in any form without explicit, express, written permission.
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Mural al fresco de pintura gótica de gran valor, datada en los principios del siglo XIV, en el que se narra la vida de santa María Egipcíaca. Esta obra se descubrió por casualidad al quedar al descubierto pintura polícroma durante una reforma.
Recoge en sí misma todo un programa iconográfico digno de “degustar” desmenuzándolo lentamente. Está dedicada a Santa María de Egipto, y su finalidad es claramente moralizante.
Santa María de Egipto vivió en torno al siglo V de nuestra Era. Tras una vida de juventud disoluta y licenciosa, supo encontrar la conversión en una peregrinación que hizo a Jerusalén; desde entonces, se retiró al desierto y llevó una vida de puro ascetismo alejada del mundo. El relato de su vida lo conocemos a través de San Zósimo, que la visitó en alguna ocasión para llevarle el consuelo de la Eucaristía.
Los frescos nos presentan su vida y nos muestran cómo hasta los pecados más graves, es posible redimirlos gracias a la infinita misericordia de Dios y al sacramento de la Penitencia.
A fresco mural of Gothic painting of great value, dating from the beginning of the 14th century, in which the life of Saint Mary the Egyptian is narrated. This work was discovered by chance when polychrome painting was uncovered during a renovation. It collects in itself an entire iconographic program worth “tasting”, slowly breaking it down. It is dedicated to Saint Mary of Egypt, and its purpose is clearly moralizing.
Saint Mary of Egypt lived around the 5th century AD. After a life of dissolute and licentious youth, she knew how to find her conversion in a pilgrimage that she made to Jerusalem; since then, she retired to the desert and led a life of pure asceticism away from the world. We know her account of her life through Saint Zosimus, who visited her on some occasion to bring her the comfort of the Eucharist.
Her frescoes show us her life and show us how even the gravest sins can be redeemed thanks to the infinite mercy of God and the sacrament of Penance.
The history of the Château de Keriolet.
At the end of 1850s, under Napoleon III (the Second French Empire,) Charles Chauveau met the Russian princess Zénaïde Narichkine-Loussoupov. She was older than he was, but she fell in love with him and bought him the count's title of Chauveau, however, he also needed a castle. As a result, Zénaïde Narichkine-Loussoupov commissioned the Château de Keriolet, and it was built at the end of the 19th century by the French architect Joseph Bigot in a Renaissance style.
The count of Chauveau, died in 1882 when he was 57-years old, and since he had bequeathed the domain to his sister, Madame Prieur, Zénaïde Narichkine-Ioussoupov bought back Kériolet and decided then to donate it, with the surrounding lands and her collections, to the department of Finistère.
In 1956, Felix Yusupov – Zénaïde Narichkine-Ioussoupov’s grandson - won a lawsuit against Finistère and gained possession of the castle.
Prince Felix Felixovich Yusupov, also known as Count Sumarokov-Elston, was a Russian aristocrat. He is best known for participating in the assassination of Grigori Rasputin and marrying the niece of Tsar Nicholas II.
Yusupov led a dissolute life and sold the collections accumulated by his grand-mother as well as some of the land surrounding the castle. Finally, the castle was sold to the city of Concarneau in 1971.
The present owner, Christophe Lévèque, acquired the castle in 1988. He is restoring it and has reopened it to the public. He is also recreating some of the lost collections that used to be part of the estate.
Near Cavalier (West), this house has been dissolving for years, I have watched and waited for the first stage of collapse.
What a night! Who wants bacon pancakes?
“The feeling of the morning after the night before is not a sensation endured by the dissolute only: every morning, for every human being, is in some sort a morning after the night before...”
― Patrick Hamilton, The Slaves of Solitude
L’Abbazia di San Galgano sorge in Toscana nella pianura dell’alta Valdimerse, in provincia di Siena.
In mezzo ai campi, in posizione isolata, con le sua ampie navate rivolte al cielo, la chiesa abbaziale costituisce un monumento insigne dello stile gotico-cistercense in Italia.
Il nobile Galgano Guidotti, nato nel 1148, dopo una vita di dissolutezza, si ritirò a vita penitenziale sulle colline di Montesiepi.
Galgano venne canonizzato nel 1185 (dopo soli 4 anni dalla morte), e in suo onore il vescovo di Volterra promosse la costruzione di una piccola cappella.
Nel 1218 iniziarono invece i lavori della grande chiesa abbaziale (69mt di lunghezza e 29 di larghezza), prendendo come modello le chiese cistercensi francesi; la chiesa venne consacrata nel 1288. Alla fine del XII la l’Abbazia raggiunse l’apice del suo splendore. Purtroppo già nel XIII sec. iniziò il declino della comunità monastica di San Galgano.
Nel XVI sec. iniziarono i primi cedimenti strutturali della chiesa abbaziale, nel 1781 crollò quello che rimaneva delle volte e nel 1786 crollò il campanile. La chiesa venne infine sconsacrata nel 1789.
Solo alla fine dell’800 l’interesse verso il monumento riprese a all’inizio del ‘900 venne condotto un restauro conservativo per consolidare quanto era rimasto della struttura originaria.
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Saint Galgano abbey is located in Tuscany (Italy), not far from Siena town.
It is one of the most representative buildings of the gothic-cistercian architecture in Italy.
Galgano Guidotti was an Italian noble man born in 1148; after a life of dissoluteness, he decided to retire to penitential life in a place very near to here. He died in 1181 and in 1185 he was canonized.
In 1218 they started the works for the big abbatial church (69mt length, 29mt width), taking as model the French Cistercian church. The church was dedicated in 1288.
At the end of XII cent. the community of the abbey reached the maximum splendour, but in the XIII the decadence started. In XVI cent. the first structural settling started in the church, in 1781 what remained of the roof ruined, in 1786 the bell tower fell down and in 1789 the church was desecrated.
Only at the end of 1800 the interest toward the building restarted and at the beginning of 1900 a restoration was done in order to consolidate what remained of the church structure.
L’Abbazia di San Galgano sorge in Toscana nella pianura dell’alta Valdimerse, in provincia di Siena.
In mezzo ai campi, in posizione isolata, con le sua ampie navate rivolte al cielo, la chiesa abbaziale costituisce un monumento insigne dello stile gotico-cistercense in Italia.
Il nobile Galgano Guidotti, nato nel 1148, dopo una vita di dissolutezza, si ritirò a vita penitenziale sulle colline di Montesiepi.
Galgano venne canonizzato nel 1185 (dopo soli 4 anni dalla morte), e in suo onore il vescovo di Volterra promosse la costruzione di una piccola cappella.
Nel 1218 iniziarono invece i lavori della grande chiesa abbaziale (69mt di lunghezza e 29 di larghezza), prendendo come modello le chiese cistercensi francesi; la chiesa venne consacrata nel 1288.
Nel XVI sec. iniziarono i primi cedimenti strutturali della chiesa abbaziale, nel 1781 crollò quello che rimaneva delle volte e nel 1786 crollò il campanile. La chiesa venne infine sconsacrata nel 1789.
Solo alla fine dell’800 l’interesse verso il monumento riprese a all’inizio del ‘900 venne condotto un restauro conservativo per consolidare quanto era rimasto della struttura originaria.
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Saint Galgano abbey is located in Tuscany (Italy), not far from Siena town.
It is one of the most representative buildings of the gothic-cistercian architecture in Italy.
Galgano Guidotti was an Italian noble man born in 1148; after a life of dissoluteness, he decided to retire to penitential life in a place very near to here. He died in 1181 and in 1185 he was canonized.
In 1218 they started the works for the big abbatial church (69mt length, 29mt width), taking as model the French Cistercian church. The church was dedicated in 1288.
In XVI cent. the first structural settling started in the church, in 1781 what remained of the roof ruined, in 1786 the bell tower fell down and in 1789 the church was desecrated.
Only at the end of 1800 the interest toward the building restarted and at the beginning of 1900 a restoration was done in order to consolidate what remained of the church structure.
L’Abbazia di San Galgano sorge in Toscana nella pianura dell’alta Valdimerse, in provincia di Siena.
In mezzo ai campi, in posizione isolata, con le sua ampie navate rivolte al cielo, la chiesa abbaziale costituisce un monumento insigne dello stile gotico-cistercense in Italia.
Il nobile Galgano Guidotti, nato nel 1148, dopo una vita di dissolutezza, si ritirò a vita penitenziale sulle colline di Montesiepi.
Galgano venne canonizzato nel 1185 (dopo soli 4 anni dalla morte), e in suo onore il vescovo di Volterra promosse la costruzione di una piccola cappella.
Nel 1218 iniziarono invece i lavori della grande chiesa abbaziale (69mt di lunghezza e 29 di larghezza), prendendo come modello le chiese cistercensi francesi; la chiesa venne consacrata nel 1288. Alla fine del XII la l’Abbazia raggiunse l’apice del suo splendore. Purtroppo già nel XIII sec. iniziò il declino della comunità monastica di San Galgano.
Nel XVI sec. iniziarono i primi cedimenti strutturali della chiesa abbaziale, nel 1781 crollò quello che rimaneva delle volte e nel 1786 crollò il campanile. La chiesa venne infine sconsacrata nel 1789.
Solo alla fine dell’800 l’interesse verso il monumento riprese a all’inizio del ‘900 venne condotto un restauro conservativo per consolidare quanto era rimasto della struttura originaria.
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Saint Galgano abbey is located in Tuscany (Italy), not far from Siena town.
It is one of the most representative buildings of the gothic-cistercian architecture in Italy.
Galgano Guidotti was an Italian noble man born in 1148; after a life of dissoluteness, he decided to retire to penitential life in a place very near to here. He died in 1181 and in 1185 he was canonized.
In 1218 they started the works for the big abbatial church (69mt length, 29mt width), taking as model the French Cistercian church. The church was dedicated in 1288.
At the end of XII cent. the community of the abbey reached the maximum splendour, but in the XIII the decadence started. In XVI cent. the first structural settling started in the church, in 1781 what remained of the roof ruined, in 1786 the bell tower fell down and in 1789 the church was desecrated.
Only at the end of 1800 the interest toward the building restarted and at the beginning of 1900 a restoration was done in order to consolidate what remained of the church structure.
I captured this in Monument Valley Utah as a storm was crossing the desert. It reminded me of the story of the Flood in the Bible and what Earth must have looked like during that time. The Title of this image represents that time period.
The meaning is " relating to the period before the flood described in the Bible "
The antediluvian period is the time period chronicled in the Bible between the fall of humans and the Genesis flood narrative in the biblical cosmology. The term was coined by Thomas Browne. The narrative takes up chapters 1–6 of the Book of Genesis. The term found its way into early geology and science until the late Victorian era. Colloquially, the term is used to refer to any ancient and murky period.
Antediluvian; (ante-di-lu-vi-an )
Zoom in for the details
If for a moment we ever forgot that we were in an Islamic country, it wasn’t usually for very long. And a number of things involving the number five were always on hand to remind us what faith most of the locals follow here. A study of the map told me there were five mosques nearby, in which the people lay prostrate and facing in an easterly direction five times a day. And every morning before sunrise at five o’clock, not so long after the last remaining drunks had staggered off to bed and the Nubian Village Resort next door had finally switched off its poolside stereo, the Muezzin at the nearest seat of worship began the first call to prayers of the new day. A curious place where worlds collide; a place where the deeply devout meets the disorderly and dissolute. Mellow, haunting and guttural, his low bass notes would wash across the empty silence, creeping in beneath the front door of our apartment. It was a beautiful and unworldly sound to a westerner who’d never been anywhere like this before, and in each of the first three mornings I was stirred from my sleep by his song.
When the other four calls came each day, the Muezzin would be competing with the holiday resorts in this Babel-like cocktail of sounds. By late morning it was not at all unusual to hear him chanting mournfully in my right ear, while La Macarena drowned the senses from the left. On one occasion I thought he was singing the chorus to Vienna by Ultravox, but I must have been mistaken. It seemed pretty unlikely that he’d have added European smash hits of the eighties to his repertoire. Just occasionally, in that delightfully peaceful period that started around sunset each day when the animations crew left their stations at the active pool and headed off for supper, I might catch the odd strain across the fading glow, but apart from that he was fighting a losing battle from where we were stationed in our resort. It was only at five in the morning that the stage was his alone.
On the third morning I set the first of a series of early alarms. Ok, so I set it incorrectly - I don’t usually have much call for morning alarms these days - but at least our local Muezzin was there on hand to correct my oversight with a wake up call of his own. For a moment I lay awake, listening to the holy man at his devotions, and then I dozed off again. I awoke once more just before quarter past six and leapt out of bed, quietly cursing myself as I did so. A little over fifteen minutes until sunrise. I peered through the curtains at a colourful morning sky. The Muezzin must see every single sunrise Tiran Island and the Gulf of Aqaba has to offer. At least I’d prepared the camera bag in advance. Five minutes later, I was on the path down towards the beach, where I found a vantage point that I would return to for a further three sunrises later in the holiday. A table under a parasol, the ensemble completed with two plastic chairs. And a lot of mosquitoes. I should have worn my jeans. And socks. With no time to spare, and a casual disregard of the fact that I was about to become the breakfast buffet for the local insect population, I planted my dainty little mini tripod on the wall and pulled up in one of the chairs beside it. Easy pickings with more time, but for now it was a race against the clock. None of that languorous blue hour business here - the sun comes up as if it’s been catapulted over the horizon by giants, and it’s not long at all before the textures and patterns in the sky are whitewashed away in a wall of blinding light. I’d surely get it wrong before things would start to make sense.
Actually, this is the very first shot I took in Egypt. Whether it's actually of Egypt is another question though. The first formative exposure of Tiran Island, an appealing lump on the horizon, its nationality a cause for discussion as far as I could tell. I'd read some sources that told me it was under the flag of Saudi Arabia, but the local Egyptians don't see it that way. Later, a fellow traveller lounging within earshot on his poolside sunbed asked the waiter about this. “It's Egyptian,” came the reply. I decided it was best not to get involved. Whichever country it belonged to, it was a fine subject for a sunrise shoot, and thanks to the unknown Muezzin I'd just about managed to get there in time for sunrise. It brings a whole new meaning to a dawn chorus.
L’Abbazia di San Galgano sorge in Toscana nella pianura dell’alta Valdimerse, in provincia di Siena.
In mezzo ai campi, in posizione isolata, con le sua ampie navate rivolte al cielo, la chiesa abbaziale costituisce un monumento insigne dello stile gotico-cistercense in Italia.
Il nobile Galgano Guidotti, nato nel 1148, dopo una vita di dissolutezza, si ritirò a vita penitenziale sulle colline di Montesiepi.
Galgano venne canonizzato nel 1185 (dopo soli 4 anni dalla morte), e in suo onore il vescovo di Volterra promosse la costruzione di una piccola cappella.
Nel 1218 iniziarono invece i lavori della grande chiesa abbaziale (69mt di lunghezza e 29 di larghezza), prendendo come modello le chiese cistercensi francesi; la chiesa venne consacrata nel 1288. Alla fine del XII la l’Abbazia raggiunse l’apice del suo splendore. Purtroppo già nel XIII sec. iniziò il declino della comunità monastica di San Galgano.
Nel XVI sec. iniziarono i primi cedimenti strutturali della chiesa abbaziale, nel 1781 crollò quello che rimaneva delle volte e nel 1786 crollò il campanile. La chiesa venne infine sconsacrata nel 1789.
Solo alla fine dell’800 l’interesse verso il monumento riprese a all’inizio del ‘900 venne condotto un restauro conservativo per consolidare quanto era rimasto della struttura originaria.
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Saint Galgano abbey is located in Tuscany (Italy), not far from Siena town.
It is one of the most representative buildings of the gothic-cistercian architecture in Italy.
Galgano Guidotti was an Italian noble man born in 1148; after a life of dissoluteness, he decided to retire to penitential life in a place very near to here. He died in 1181 and in 1185 he was canonized.
In 1218 they started the works for the big abbatial church (69mt length, 29mt width), taking as model the French Cistercian church. The church was dedicated in 1288.
At the end of XII cent. the community of the abbey reached the maximum splendour, but in the XIII the decadence started. In XVI cent. the first structural settling started in the church, in 1781 what remained of the roof ruined, in 1786 the bell tower fell down and in 1789 the church was desecrated.
Only at the end of 1800 the interest toward the building restarted and at the beginning of 1900 a restoration was done in order to consolidate what remained of the church structure.
I’d been banging on about the place for nearly five years by now. “Let’s go to Clevedon,” I’d throw into the mix whenever the prospect of a Somerset jolly appeared on the agenda. “It’s got a beautiful pier and the lido is great too. Definitely worth a stop if we’re in the area.”
For a while, the Somerset trip seemed forever destined to be an unrealised adventure. While Dave and Lee had rather more flexible working arrangements, my endless calendar of reporting deadlines left only a few windows of opportunity that didn’t get snapped up sleepy by fortnights in the sun. And then the pandemic came along and messed up everybody’s plans for a couple of years. But after four years of talking and a couple of pit stops at nearby Burnham on Sea on the way home from adventures in Glencoe and Snowdonia respectively, it seemed that the rather more modest foray a couple of counties to the east was finally in the diary. Lee had booked some reasonably priced accommodation, we’d all been given clearance for the mission to proceed by our better halves, and a three night escapade was confirmed for February. Right in the middle of storm season again as it turned out.
And so, on the morning of the first full day of middle aged togs’ playtime we set the compass for the brief drive up the motorway to Clevedon, a town reminiscent of some of Bristol’s more pleasing areas with a coastline to add to the appeal. I’d been here three or four times before, always armed with the camera of course. After all I’d seen pictures of that beautiful Victorian pier long before I’d ever set foot in town. And in every one of those visits, a strangely calm aura has swept over me as I’ve gazed along the waterfront for the first time. It’s one of those towns where I immediately sense a feeling of happy ease whenever I arrive. The previous stop was just a few months earlier when we’d parked the van here rather than at Taunton Deane Services for our lunch break on the way home from a few nights in the Brecon Beacons. Ali and I had sat for hours by the lido enjoying the October sunshine, taking in the distant view across the Bristol Channel of the Sugar Loaf Mountain near Abergavenny, where we’d just arrived here from. Silently, with our bare feet dipped into the cold water we sat at the edge, eavesdropping the conversations of the nearby swimmers as they talked about life, work and how their regular constitutional here made them happy. It seemed that some people came on the local train from Bristol to get the swimming fix that made so many of them glow with contentment. I was pretty ecstatic myself at the time. I’d retired a few days before we’d left for Wales and still hadn’t quite grasped the notion that for the very first time, I wouldn’t be getting up in the morning and heading into the office. Not tomorrow; not ever. It took months to get used to that sensation. And that’s how Clevedon makes me feel whenever I stop there. Silently glowing. Our brief lunch stop spread itself carelessly across the afternoon and darkness was falling by the time we headed back to the van for the rest of the journey back to Cornwall. Well, you knew I was going to stop for sunset didn’t you? It was a very nice one too – I really should edit those photos, shouldn’t I?
And now I was back, among slightly more dishevelled and dissolute company, each of us wandering off in separate directions to make our own compositions on a brisk and shower filled Wednesday in February. Even in the depths of winter the swimmers were making good use of the lido, albeit mostly in thick wetsuits. Away beyond these calm waters, the earthy brown currents of the Bristol Channel surged darkly and frothily along the divide between here and South Wales, reminding us that Storm Eunice was due to arrive within the next day or two. Yet despite the combining of the elements and the promise they held for the coming days, Clevedon’s waterfront still retained that peaceable mood; a mood that was soon added to by the flawless rainbow that appeared and hung over the pier for upwards of half an hour, offering plenty of opportunity to compose, recompose and then return to version one. I’ve never seen a rainbow stay in the sky for such a length of time. I was even able to take a walk along the front to a place just above the pier and shoot it from there too. Not often you’re spoilt for choice with your rainbow shots. I could even have given you the double rainbow on a very wide angle. I eventually chose to share this one with you, a five second exposure taken across the lido where the water was moving just enough to offer some texture. Not often a rainbow appears exactly where you’d want it to either. Usually they’re right behind us, opposite the light source and hovering over a sewage works or the local landfill site.
So if you’re ever beetling along the M5, just around Bristol and considering the soul sapping experience that is otherwise known as stopping at a motorway service station, you might just want to make an exit at junction 20 and head for the waterfront instead. True, your journey may end up taking several hours longer than you’d intended, especially if you’ve brought your camera along for the ride, but you might just feel better for the experience. I always do. Especially when somebody plants a rainbow on top of the pier.
Nobody was more surprised than myself when I jumped out of bed before sunrise on New Year's Day. I'd stayed up until the small hours watching Richard E Grant having a splendid time playing the utterly dissolute Withnail alongside Paul McGann's ever timid "I," and gone to bed very late indeed. Generally this is a recipe for an especially slothful start to the following day, with an over reliance on the coffee reserves and little other meaningful sign of life before noon. But for once things were different. Improbably it had snowed in the evening, and even more surprisingly it had settled. With the weather forecast promising a cold clear night it seemed likely that the freshly laid white carpet on the badger eaten patch of scrub that passes for the front lawn would still be there in the morning, although for how long beyond that was uncertain. This was most unusual in our mild wet corner of the country so it couldn't really be missed. I set the alarm despite having no confidence whatsoever in my ability to crawl out of bed less than six hours after getting into it.
Early in the morning I wandered around the garden with a quiet smile. There's something about snow that takes me back to childhood. In the forty-five years since my parents moved us down to Cornwall I could count the number of times we've had more than a brief coating of the stuff on the fingers of one hand and still have a digit or two to spare. There was 1979 when Dad made sledges out of old bits of wood and fitted plastic curtain rails under the runners, which made them faster than anyone else's on the near vertical Trelawney Road in Falmouth. How none of us got killed I can't really say. Then there was 1987 when my return to University after Christmas was delayed by the big freeze and I watched "Gregory's Girl" for twenty consecutive nights on the VHS player. Since then we've had the odd afternoon when panic has broken loose at work as every car in the universe attempts to leave Truro at exactly the same moment, but there is generally a period of around ten years between each of these momentous events. Only rarely has the snow still been on the ground the following day. The message from Cornwall is, if you want to see snow in winter, this isn't going to be the likeliest place to find it.
I quickly decided the garden wasn't bringing any inspiration at all and prepared to go to the same place as I did when the Beast from the East visited three years ago. The woods across the road beckoned. By now the clock was against me and as I struggled through thick mud towards a spot I'd taken a shot from before, the sky filled with soft pink light. I checked my watch yet again; the moment of sunrise was very close. My right eye complained at me, streaming in the cold morning air. It wasn't used to being open or outdoors at such a disagreeable hour after ten days away from the office, and stonily refused to fully open and engage with the rest of me. Weeping from one eye and slipping around on the sodden track I pushed on urgently in a race against the sunrise, eventually arriving at this spot where a gate onto an open field waited appealingly under a soft white dust that didn't seem likely to last long. Mentally I recorded the scene before me, but I didn't stop. The composition I wanted was a few yards further along the path. When I got there it took seconds to reject it.
Five minutes later I was back here, just in time to get the shot before the sun rose and blew the highlights and what was left of the pastel pinks clean out of the sky. A minute or two later and I'd have missed it completely. Later on I returned for a leisurely stroll. The snow had almost completely gone, leaving only traces of the beautiful morning landscape that I'm so glad I didn't miss.
Several people, my own dear mother included, have said the result of this New Year's Day outing should be on a Christmas card. The trouble is I still can't decide whether that's a compliment or a thickly veiled insult. But I'm thinking of getting some Christmas cards printed at the end of this year.
I used to think that people just went for a walk in the woods. Bill Bryson went for a walk in the woods – he walked large chunks of the Appalachian Trail with his dissolute friend Stephen Katz, in the suitably entitled “A Walk in the Woods.” Bears, hypothermia, shotgun wielding hillbillies, and most frighteningly of all, people who wanted to talk about hiking gear weren’t enough to put him off - although they frightened me a bit. I myself have twice walked pretty much the entire length of the east bank of Loch Lomond, twenty miles or more along a heavily wooded section of the West Highland Way. The most brutal section of the entire long distance trail in my opinion - but also possibly the most rewarding. Despite the occasional break through open ground where the mountains filled the backdrop to the opposite bank, I definitely felt that I was having a walk in the woods. Miles from anyone, with the exception of a few other long distance hikers gradually making their way north.
But it seems that I was wrong. Now I’ve learned that what we’ve all been doing is having a bath of sorts. We’ve been forest bathing in fact. Amble along peaceably, stop and cuddle the odd oak here and there, feel the love and then be interviewed by an outdoorsy type of celebrity for a spot on Countryfile. “Outdoorsy” didn’t cause the spellchecker to go into overdrive by the way. Who knew? I’ve always been suspicious of passing fads – terrified that I might stroll through a forest and bump into Gwyneth Paltrow hugging a Horse Chestnut or Will Young baring his soul to a Beech. But what I do find rather soothing is the sound of endless birdsong and the gentle rustle of life somewhere up in the canopy. There’s nothing quite like it. It seems I’ve been in the bath too – it’s just that I never realised that’s what I was doing. I’d better not accidentally bump into Paltrow as it seems that can turn out to be a rather expensive thing to do based on recent events.
Like many of you, each year I produce a calendar using images from the adventures of the last twelve months, and rather than simply compiling twelve shots from the September adventures in Iceland, I prefer each month to be represented by an image taken at the appropriate time. It’s not something I’ll ever be bothered to try and do commercially though, so sorry I can’t take orders – besides which yours is probably far better anyway. Just a dozen or so for family and a few close friends. A few days ago we turned over from Madeira in March to April’s feature and remembered that it’s almost a year since Ali and I took the van to the New Forest to do some forest bathing of our own. I’d forgotten how much I liked this picture. It was one that I’d intended to share at the time but somehow never did. On a still sunny afternoon, one of those when you knew that spring had truly arrived, we took a long circuit through the Ashurst Forest towards the heath, stopping here to enjoy the silence and snaffle a ration or two. Neither Paltrow nor Young appeared to be present, and nor did anyone else for that matter, famous or otherwise.
Of course I’d taken the camera with me, and the long lens did exactly what I hoped it would, eliminating the sky and blurring the background as I focused on the nearest subject. I tried a few compositions, but having the space filled with brown trunks against the yellow floor and the leading subject somewhere around the left hand third seemed the most pleasing version to me. Woodland photography is so often a struggle, but here it seemed simple enough with the regular forms before me disappearing softly into the distance, and the odd spring of fresh green growth to gatecrash the colour scheme.
And what better place to take a dip than in one of the most famous baths in the nation? Room for plenty of people to find their inner wotsit as they search around in the deep end for the soap and the loofah. A space in which to switch off and drop out for a while. Not that we were exactly over exerting ourselves in the first place of course. We’re retired and enjoying the golden years after all. But then again, there’s always another slow lane in which to ease down a gear, put up our feet and watch the rest of the world race by.
L’Abbazia di San Galgano sorge in Toscana nella pianura dell’alta Valdimerse, in provincia di Siena.
In mezzo ai campi, in posizione isolata, con le sua ampie navate rivolte al cielo, la chiesa abbaziale costituisce un monumento insigne dello stile gotico-cistercense in Italia.
Il nobile Galgano Guidotti, nato nel 1148, dopo una vita di dissolutezza, si ritirò a vita penitenziale sulle colline di Montesiepi.
Galgano venne canonizzato nel 1185 (dopo soli 4 anni dalla morte), e in suo onore il vescovo di Volterra promosse la costruzione di una piccola cappella.
Nel 1218 iniziarono invece i lavori della grande chiesa abbaziale (69mt di lunghezza e 29 di larghezza), prendendo come modello le chiese cistercensi francesi; la chiesa venne consacrata nel 1288. Alla fine del XII la l’Abbazia raggiunse l’apice del suo splendore. Purtroppo già nel XIII sec. iniziò il declino della comunità monastica di San Galgano.
Nel XVI sec. iniziarono i primi cedimenti strutturali della chiesa abbaziale, nel 1781 crollò quello che rimaneva delle volte e nel 1786 crollò il campanile. La chiesa venne infine sconsacrata nel 1789.
Solo alla fine dell’800 l’interesse verso il monumento riprese a all’inizio del ‘900 venne condotto un restauro conservativo per consolidare quanto era rimasto della struttura originaria.
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Saint Galgano abbey is located in Tuscany (Italy), not far from Siena town.
It is one of the most representative buildings of the gothic-cistercian architecture in Italy.
Galgano Guidotti was an Italian noble man born in 1148; after a life of dissoluteness, he decided to retire to penitential life in a place very near to here. He died in 1181 and in 1185 he was canonized.
In 1218 they started the works for the big abbatial church (69mt length, 29mt width), taking as model the French Cistercian church. The church was dedicated in 1288.
At the end of XII cent. the community of the abbey reached the maximum splendour, but in the XIII the decadence started. In XVI cent. the first structural settling started in the church, in 1781 what remained of the roof ruined, in 1786 the bell tower fell down and in 1789 the church was desecrated.
Only at the end of 1800 the interest toward the building restarted and at the beginning of 1900 a restoration was done in order to consolidate what remained of the church structure.
The butterfly obtains
But little sympathy
Though favorably mentioned
In Entomology --
Because he travels freely
And wears a proper coat
The circumspect are certain
That he is dissolute --
Had he the homely scutcheon
Of modest Industry
'Twere fitter certifying
For Immortality --
Emily Dickinson
Holy Relic from her Blanket (Ex Linteis); Widow, Mystic, Visionary, and Foundress of the Sisters of Our Lady of Refuge in Mount Calvary (Brignolines).
Memorial: December 15
Saint Virginia Centurione Bracelli was born on 2 April 1587 in Genoa, Italy. Daughter of Giorgio Centurione, an imposing and controlling individual who became the Doge of Genoa, and Lelia Spinola. Raised in a pious family, she felt drawn to religious life as a child. However, due to family position she agree to an arranged marriage to Gasparo Grimaldi Bracelli on 10 December 1602. He was a drinker, a gambler, and though the couple had two daughters, Lelia and Isabella, he was little of a father or husband. Virginia was widowed on 13 June 1607 after five years of marriage, aged 20, and with two small children.
Virginia moved in with her in-laws, cared for her children, and dedicated her free time to prayer and charity. When her daughters were grown and married, Virginia devoted herself entirely to caring for the sick, aged, and abandoned children. In late 1624 and early 1625 war in the region led to many orphans, some whom Virginia took in and cared for, and she worked with refugees in the town. When her mother-in-law died in August 1625, Virginia poured herself into the work, turning her house into a refuge and founding the Centro Signore della Misericordia Protettrici dei Poveri di Gesù Cristo
Her house was overrun with the needy during a plague and famine in 1629-1630. To house them all Virginia rented the vacant convent of Monte Calvario and moved her charges there in 1631. Due to crowding, extra housing was built in 1634, Virginia was soon caring for 300 patients, and in 1635 she received official government recognition for her hospital. Virginia worked closely with the young women in her houses, teaching them religion and ways to earn a living.
The expenses of Monte Calvario were excessive, so Virginia bought two villas and started construction of a church dedicated to Our Lady of Refuge. It became the mother church of the Institution, whose Rule was written between 1644 and 1650 and which was divided into two congregations: Suore di Nostra Signora del Rifugio di Monte Calvario (Sisters of Our Lady of Refuge in Mount Calvary) and Figlie di Nostra Signora al Monte Calvario (Daughters of Our Lady on Mount Calvary). When the group of Protectors, the superiors and governors of the Institute was selected in 1641, Virginia retired from administration, working as the humblest sister, doing chores on the grounds and begging for alms for the Institute.
Sadly, though the Institute was a success, healing the sick, educating children, training adults, and helping the dissolute return to productive lives, assistance, personal and financial, began to decline. Without the chance to work with Virginia, many of the middle and upper class did not participate, fearing the poor and rough residents. Though her health was failing, Virginia returned to active administrative duties. She worked for general spiritual development throughout the region, working for the choice of the Blessed Virgin Mary as patron of the republic of Genoa in 1637, for the institution of the Forty Hours' Devotion in 1642, and the revival of home missions in 1643. She acted as peacemaker between noble houses, and aided in the reconciliation of Church and Republic authorities in 1647, ending a dispute caused by the government abandoning support of the Institute. Virginia continued working up to the end of her days, and in later years received the gifts of visions and interior locutions.
Virginia died on 15 December 1651 in Genoa, Italy of natural causes. She was Canonized on 18 May 2003 by Pope John Paul II at St. Peter's Basilica.
PRAYER
O God,
You call to reign with You
those who serve You faithfully:
in her earthly life
you have given Saint Virginia
the gift of serving the church and the World
generously,
give us the strength to imitate her
in the joyful search of Your Will
and in the charity towards the poor and needy
brothers.
For Christ Our Lord.
Amen
My two houseguests this week: the dissolute and fabulous Natashka and beautiful and deeply intellectual Zhenya.
My two houseguests this week: the dissolute and fabulous Natashka and beautiful and deeply intellectual Zhenya.
L’Abbazia di San Galgano sorge in Toscana nella pianura dell’alta Valdimerse, in provincia di Siena.
In mezzo ai campi, in posizione isolata, con le sua ampie navate rivolte al cielo, la chiesa abbaziale costituisce un monumento insigne dello stile gotico-cistercense in Italia.
Il nobile Galgano Guidotti, nato nel 1148, dopo una vita di dissolutezza, si ritirò a vita penitenziale sulle colline di Montesiepi.
Galgano venne canonizzato nel 1185 (dopo soli 4 anni dalla morte), e in suo onore il vescovo di Volterra promosse la costruzione di una piccola cappella.
Nel 1218 iniziarono invece i lavori della grande chiesa abbaziale (69mt di lunghezza e 29 di larghezza), prendendo come modello le chiese cistercensi francesi; la chiesa venne consacrata nel 1288. Alla fine del XII la l’Abbazia raggiunse l’apice del suo splendore. Purtroppo già nel XIII sec. iniziò il declino della comunità monastica di San Galgano.
Nel XVI sec. iniziarono i primi cedimenti strutturali della chiesa abbaziale, nel 1781 crollò quello che rimaneva delle volte e nel 1786 crollò il campanile. La chiesa venne infine sconsacrata nel 1789.
Solo alla fine dell’800 l’interesse verso il monumento riprese a all’inizio del ‘900 venne condotto un restauro conservativo per consolidare quanto era rimasto della struttura originaria.
----------
Saint Galgano abbey is located in Tuscany (Italy), not far from Siena town.
It is one of the most representative buildings of the gothic-cistercian architecture in Italy.
Galgano Guidotti was an Italian noble man born in 1148; after a life of dissoluteness, he decided to retire to penitential life in a place very near to here. He died in 1181 and in 1185 he was canonized.
In 1218 they started the works for the big abbatial church (69mt length, 29mt width), taking as model the French Cistercian church. The church was dedicated in 1288.
At the end of XII cent. the community of the abbey reached the maximum splendour, but in the XIII the decadence started. In XVI cent. the first structural settling started in the church, in 1781 what remained of the roof ruined, in 1786 the bell tower fell down and in 1789 the church was desecrated.
Only at the end of 1800 the interest toward the building restarted and at the beginning of 1900 a restoration was done in order to consolidate what remained of the church structure.
Vorbei ist's mit der Schlemmerei und dem Lotterleben. Heute ruft wieder die Pflicht, mein Pelz ist viel zu eng, und was habe ich mir nicht alles vorgenommen für's Neue Jahr...
Wie soll ich die Woche nur überstehen???
Gone's the gluttony and the dissolute life. Duty calls again, my fur has gotten much too tight, and all these stupid New Year's resolutions... feel so grumpy... How shall I survive this week?
"Time Passes, Listen Time Passes"
Among other anniverseries, 1914 is the centenary of the birth of Dylan Thomas, one of Swansea’s most famous (and dissolute) sons. We popped over to the village of Laugharne yesterday, not consciously on a “pilgrimage” but simply because it’s a very nice place. Thomas spend the last four years here and wrote some of his late masterpieces, including Under Milk Wood, at the Boathouse (pictured). His writing studio is preserved and has seeping wonderful views of the Towy Estuary and Carmarthen Bay from Swansea all the way to the tip of Pembrokeshire. Stunning.
What a loss at the age of 39, I wonder how his poetry would have evolved into (respectable?) maturity
"It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
And the mussel pooled and the heron
priested shore
The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall
Myself to set foot
That second
In the still sleeping town and set forth".
Il cielo con nuvole visto attraverso le "finestre" dell'abside della Abbazia di San Galgano, in Toscana.
In mezzo ai campi, in posizione isolata, con le sua ampie navate rivolte al cielo, la chiesa abbaziale costituisce un monumento insigne dello stile gotico-cistercense in Italia.
Il nobile Galgano Guidotti, nato nel 1148, dopo una vita di dissolutezza, si ritirò a vita penitenziale sulle colline di Montesiepi.
Galgano venne canonizzato nel 1185 (dopo soli 4 anni dalla morte), e in suo onore il vescovo di Volterra promosse la costruzione di una piccola cappella.
Nel 1218 iniziarono invece i lavori della grande chiesa abbaziale (69mt di lunghezza e 29 di larghezza), prendendo come modello le chiese cistercensi francesi; la chiesa venne consacrata nel 1288. Alla fine del XII la l’Abbazia raggiunse l’apice del suo splendore. Purtroppo già nel XIII sec. iniziò il declino della comunità monastica di San Galgano.
Nel XVI sec. iniziarono i primi cedimenti strutturali della chiesa abbaziale, nel 1781 crollò quello che rimaneva delle volte e nel 1786 crollò il campanile. La chiesa venne infine sconsacrata nel 1789.
Solo alla fine dell’800 l’interesse verso il monumento riprese a all’inizio del ‘900 venne condotto un restauro conservativo per consolidare quanto era rimasto della struttura originaria.
La foto è un HDR per via della forte differenza di luminosità tra il cielo e l'interno della chiesa.
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The sky with clouds as seens through the "windows" of the Saint Galgano abbey (located in Tuscany, Italy, not far from Siena town.
It is one of the most representative buildings of the gothic-cistercian architecture in Italy.
Galgano Guidotti was an Italian noble man born in 1148; after a life of dissoluteness, he decided to retire to penitential life in a place very near to here. He died in 1181 and in 1185 he was canonized.
In 1218 they started the works for the big abbatial church (69mt length, 29mt width), taking as model the French Cistercian church. The church was dedicated in 1288.
At the end of XII cent. the community of the abbey reached the maximum splendour, but in the XIII the decadence started. In XVI cent. the first structural settling started in the church, in 1781 what remained of the roof ruined, in 1786 the bell tower fell down and in 1789 the church was desecrated.
Only at the end of 1800 the interest toward the building restarted and at the beginning of 1900 a restoration was done in order to consolidate what remained of the church structure.
This shot is an HDR elaboration due to the big luminosity difference between the sky and the interior of the abbey.
Wouter Crabeth II (Gouda, 1594 - Gouda, June 18, 1644) -the cheaters (1640) - oil on canvas 133,50 x 169,00 cm - Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
Fu attivo come pittore di storia, genere e ritrattista. Il suo lavoro è influenzato dai viaggi in Italia e Francia.
Il motivo del gioco delle carte, da tavolo e dei dadi, per lo più ambientato nell'ambiente di pub o bordelli, era popolare anche nella pittura olandese. Tali descrizioni dovrebbero sempre mettere in guardia contro la vita dissoluta con frode e perdita di denaro. Crabeth II si ispirò alle opere di Caravaggio per questa potente composizione durante il suo soggiorno a Roma, ma creò il quadro solo dopo il suo ritorno dall'Italia
was active as a painter of history, genre and portrait. His work is influenced by his travels in Italy and France.
The motif of card, board and dice games, mostly set in the environment of pubs or brothels, was also popular in Dutch painting. Such descriptions should always warn against dissolute living with fraud and loss of money. Crabeth II was inspired by the works of Caravaggio for this powerful composition during his stay in Rome, but did not create the painting until after his return from Italy
I had to change Declan as his outfit was needed for another guy... so I just dressed him in some random clothes and suddenly he became another character! Dorian Gray, the beautiful young man who stays beautiful no matter how wicked and dissolute he becomes... but the same cannot be said for his portrait. The portrait painted of him when he was young and beautiful gradually starts to change and deform and eventually becomes hideous. I made the portrait of Declan/Dorian using PicsArt and adding various effects. Then I printed it on photo paper and used a craquelure glaze on it to give it an antique oil painting effect. Most of the other objects in the picture are thift store finds....I tried to include memento mori elements and others relating to beauty and vanity.. some can be seen others not.
Castel Nuovo, is a medieval castle located in front of Piazza Municipio and the city hall (Palazzo San Giacomo) in central Naples, Campania, Italy. Its scenic location and imposing size makes the castle, first erected in 1279, one of the main architectural landmarks of the city. It was a royal seat for kings of Naples, Aragon and Spain until 1815.
It is the headquarters of Neapolitan Society of Homeland History and of the Naples Committee of the Institute for the History of the Italian Risorgimento. In the complex there is also the civic museum, which includes the Palatine Chapel and the museum paths on the first and second floors.
The construction of its former nucleus -today partly re-emerged following restoration and archaeological exploration work- is due to the initiative of Charles I of Anjou, who in 1266, defeated the Hohenstaufens, ascended to the throne of Sicily and established the transfer of the capital from Palermo to the city of Naples.
The presence of an external monarchy had set the town planning of Naples around the center of the royal power, constituting an alternative urban core, formed by the port and by the two main castles adjacent to it, Castel Capuano and Castel dell'Ovo. This relationship between the royal court and town planning had already manifested itself with Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, who in the 13th century, in the Swabian statute had concentrated greater attention on castles neglecting the city walls. To the two existing castles the Anjevins added the main, Castel Nuovo (Chastiau neuf), which was not just a fortification but above all his magnificent palace.
The royal residence of Naples had been until then the Castel Capuano, but the Norman ancient fortress was judged as inadequate to the function and the king wanted to build a new castle near the sea.
The project was designed by the French architect Pierre de Chaulnes, the construction of the Castrum Novum started in 1279 to finish just three years later, a very short time considering the techniques of construction of the period and the overall size of the work. However, the king never lived there: following the War of the Sicilian Vespers, which cost to the House of Anjou the crown of Sicily, conquered by Peter III of Aragon and other events, the new palace remained unused until 1285, the year of the death of Charles I.
The new king Charles II of Naples moved with his family and the court to the new residence, which he enlarged and embellished. During his reign the Holy See was particularly linked to the House of Anjou, in a turbulent relationship, which also in the following years will be marked by pressure, alliances and continuous ruptures. On December 13 of 1294 the Main Hall of the Castel Nuovo was the scene of the famous abdication of Pope Celestine V (the hermit Pietro da Morrone), from the papal throne, called by Dante Alighieri the great refusal and the following December 24, in the same hall the board of cardinals elected Benedetto Caetani, who assumed the name of Pope Boniface VIII and immediately moved its headquarters to Rome to avoid the interference of the Anjevin family.
With the ascent to the throne of Robert, King of Naples, in 1309, the castle, which he renovated and expanded, became a remarkable center of culture, because to his patronage and his passion for the arts and literature: the Castel Nuovo hosted important personalities of the culture of the time, such as the writers Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio in their Neapolitan stays, while the most famous painters of the time that they were called to paint its walls: Pietro Cavallini, Montano d'Arezzo, and above all Giotto, who in 1332 painted the Palatine Chapel.
From 1343 it was the residence of Joanna I of Naples, who in 1347, fled to France, abandoned it to the assaults of the army of the King Louis I of Hungary. He had come to avenge the death of his brother Andrew, the Giovanna's husband, killed by a palace plot that the queen herself was suspected of instigating it. The castle was looted and on its return the queen was forced to a radical restructuring. During the second expedition of Louis against Naples the castle, where the queen had found refuge, resisted the assaults. In the following years the fortress underwent other attacks: on the occasion of the taking of Naples by Charles III of Naples and then that of Louis II of Naples, who subtracted it from the son of Charles III, Ladislaus of Naples. The latter, regained the throne in 1399, lived there until his death in 1414.
Joanna II of Naples succeeded her brother Ladislaus and ascended the throne as the last Anjevin dynasty. The queen, depicted as a dissolute, lustful, bloody woman, would have hosted in her alcove lovers of all kinds and social backgrounds, even rounded up by her emissaries among young, handsome people. To protect her good name, Joanna II would not hesitate to get rid of them as soon as she satisfied her cravings. Precisely for this purpose it has been narrated for centuries that the queen had a secret trapdoor inside the castle: her lovers, having exhausted their task, were thrown into this well and devoured by sea monsters. According to a legend, it would have been a crocodile from the Africa to the castle's dungeons after crossing the Mediterranean Sea, the perpetrator of the horrendous death of the Joanna's lovers.
In 1443 Alfonso V of Aragon, who had conquered the throne of Naples, established a court in the castle, such as to compete with the Florentine court of Lorenzo de' Medici and the fortress was completely rebuilt in its present form, maintaining its function as the center of royal power.
King Alfonso V entrusted the restructuring of the Angevin fortress-palace to the Majorcan architect Guillem Sagrera, who rebuilt it in Catalan-Majorcan-Gothic style. The five round towers, four of which incorporated the previous Anjevin construction with a square plan, suitable to support the blows of the guns of the time, reiterated the defensive role of the castle. The importance of the palace as a center of royal power was instead emphasized by rebuilding the Main Gate in a Triumphal Arc shape, a masterpiece of the Neapolitan Renaissance architecture and work of Dalmatian Francesco Laurana, together with many artists of various origins. The works took place starting from 1453 and only after the king's death was completed in 1479.
In the Hall of the Barons there was the epilogue of the famous Conspiracy of the Barons, war against the King Ferdinand I of Naples, son of Alfonso V, by many nobles, led by Antonello Sanseverino, Prince of Salerno, and Francesco Coppola, Count of Sarno. In 1486 the king invited all the conspirators to this room under the pretext of a wedding party, which marked the overcoming of hostilities and definitive reconciliation. The barons ran, but the king, ordered his soldiers to bar the doors, had them arrested, punishing many of them, including Coppola and his sons, with the death sentence.
Conspiracy of the Barons
The Conspiracy of the Barons was a movement of reaction against the policies of centralization of the State adopted by the new sovereign dynasty of Naples, i.e. the Aragonese. The lawsuits against Ferdinand I of Naples were that these began the recovery of populated areas, taking them away from the Barons' property and supplying them with that of the Aragonese court. In fact, the maneuver was a royal delivery of power.
The internal struggle between barons and dynasty took place in a political and hidden manner and the same culminated definitively in 1487 in the homonymous hall of the Castel Nuovo. Ferdinand I of Naples, during his throne, he found himself facing the barons, beating them in skill and cunning after plots, assassins and double games.
The castle was again looted by Charles VIII of France, during his expedition in 1494. First with the fall of Ferdinand II of Naples (1496) and later of Frederick of Naples (1503), the kingdom of Naples was annexed to the Kingdom of Spain by Ferdinand II of Aragon, who established the Viceroyalty of Naples. The Castel Nuovo lost its function as a royal residence, becoming a military garrison, due to its strategically important position. However, it hosted the Kings of Spain who came to visit Naples, like Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, who lived there for a short time in 1535. The castle remained the residence of the Spanish Viceroy until the early 17th century when the new palace (now the Royal Palace of Naples) replaced it.
Castel Sant'Elmo is visible on the hill in the background,
The castle was again arranged by Prince Charles of Bourbon, the future Charles III of Spain, ascended to the throne of Naples in 1734, but lost its role of a royal residence, in favor to the new royal palaces that went building in Naples itself and its surroundings (the Royal Palace of Naples at the Piazza del Plebiscito, Palace of Capodimonte, Palace of Portici and Royal Palace of Caserta) and became essentially a symbol of the history and greatness of Naples.
The last important event dates back to 1799, when it was proclaimed the birth of the Parthenopean Republic (Neapolitan Republic). Renovated for the last time in 1823 by Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, it later hosted the "artillery arsenal" and a "pyrotechnic office" which in 1837 estimated to be more prudent transfer of the guns factory of the Torre Annunziata.
In the 1920s was made the wide range of flower gardens that ran along the Maschio Angioino until the end-20th century: in the early months of 1921 Count Pietro Municchi, an engineer then councilor of urban decor, presented to the City Council the proposal for the isolation of the Castel Nuovo.
Finally the Italian State obtained the entire castle for civil purposes, the works began in 1923 and also affected the factories and warehouses built near the square in place of the demolished bastions: already the following year all the various buildings were eliminated and the esplanade was created where gardens were built on the side of current Vittorio Emanuele III street.
Only the door of the citadel was saved, the original Aragonese access to the complex, rebuilt in 1496 by Frederick of Naples (as evidenced by its emblem on the arch): isolated and distorted of its function, is visible among the flower garden square along Via Vittorio Emanuele III. The work related to the restoration of the castle, which eliminated the many superficies added over time, lasted until 1939.
Created by Lorenzo Bartolini in 1845 and on view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 555.
Commissioned by Count Anatoly Nicolaevich Demidoff. The subject is a complex, cosmological allegory best described in the sculptor's own words: "Stretched out upon the plan of the world is Cupid, god of generation, sustaining and watching over the symbolic genius of dissolute wealth without virtue, who snores in his sleep . . . dreaming of past diversions in pleasure. Left to himself, the genius of ambitious rectitude in work sleeps the agitated sleep of misfortune and glory. . . his head extending beyond the periphery of the world."
It was also entitled The Dream of Unhappy Virtue and Wanton Opulence or "an allegory of love, vice and wisdom."
had very dark skin. He was from Ethiopian. He was once a slave in Egypt and later leader of a gang of thieves, a carouser, and a brawler. He lived a rather dissolute life in his younger years, had a conversion experience in which he heard and heeded the call of God, was a leader of a religious community and known as a man of peace spending much of his ministry calling people to reconciliation and forgiveness by word and example. He was martyred by robbers.
Whoever, she writes, “dares the wilderness of Love / Shall understand Love: / Her coming, her going.” This Love quickly shatters any idols of popular romance or pious sentimentality. It, or she, can seem elusive, withdrawn, even cruel at times, making us “stray in a wild desert.” And so Hadewijch counsels courage: “O soul, creature, And noble image, Risk the adventure!”...
...It is not just that loving always has an element of risk, but that the courage to take a risk takes heart: it presumes a love, a passion. Only in Love, Hadewijch implies, do we actualize our potentiality as humans: only in the wilds of Love do we truly come to be. Does it “let be” in the active sense of the creative process we have been examining in our reconstructions of creation and of divine power? Does it suggest a third way for love itself: neither the eros rendered dissolute by loveless sexual conquests, nor the moralistic “love” that knows no holy eros?
-On the Mystery,DISCERNING DIVINITY IN PROCESS, Catherine Keller
/********
-Lisa Gerrard, Sacrifice
Iron Photographer 56
1 - a shoe
2 - something that begins with the letter R - A Rake. In this case... "a fashionable or wealthy man of dissolute or promiscuous habits."
3 - with the title of a movie that won an academy award for Best Picture.
52in2018 - 42. Still Life with Five Objects - Two Martini Glasses, One Shoe, One Olive, One Rake.
The Apartment is a 1960 romantic comedy-drama film produced and directed by Billy Wilder. It won several Academy Awards including; Best Film, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Art Direction / Set Decoration B&W.
Excerpt from Wikipedia:
Bridgepoint Active Healthcare is a complex care and rehabilitation hospital in Toronto. It is a member of the Sinai Health System and affiliated with the University of Toronto.
The hospital is located next to the Don River in the Riverdale neighbourhood of the city and includes the historic Don Jail which is now the administration building for the new hospital. The exact address is 14 St. Matthews Road, Toronto, Ontario at the corner of Broadview Avenue and Gerrard Street. The new building towers over the east side of the Don Valley Parkway.
The "House of Refuge" was built on the site in 1860 as a home for "vagrants, the dissolute, and for idiots". The facility became the "Riverdale Isolation Hospital" in 1875 during a smallpox epidemic. It became a specialized facility located on the edge of the city to house patients with communicable diseases, such as tuberculosis. As times changed, in 1957, the hospital's name and mandate were changed; its focus was shifted to helping those with chronic ailments and/or needing rehabilitation, as the Riverdale Hospital. The architecturally distinctive brown brick "half-round" Riverdale Hospital - which become Bridgepoint Health in 2002 - was completed in 1963; was amalgamated structurally into the new Bridgepoint Active Healthcare campus.
In 2003, a $200 million expansion project was announced, that modernized and expanded the facility. The final result is the purpose-built, 10-storey, 404-bed Bridgepoint Hospital building, which is connected by a glass walkway to the old Don Jail.
The new, state-of-the-art facility serves as a "living lab" to foster the next generation of clinicians, researchers and educators who will work together to advance understanding and treatment of complex chronic disease. It serves as a research base for the Bridgepoint Collaboratory for Research and Innovation, which is one of the only research enterprises in the world to focus exclusively on complex chronic disease.
Bridgepoint Active Healthcare and Infrastructure Ontario have partnered with Plenary Health to design, build, finance and maintain the new facility for 30 years after completion.
Construction started in the fall of 2009, and has been fully operational since April 2013.
Patient services moved to the new hospital building on April 14, 2013. The 10-storey hospital incorporates with the former Don Jail (c. 1858), which serves as the administrative wing of the hospital. The new building officially opened on June 25, 2013.
My two houseguests this week: the dissolute and fabulous Natashka and beautiful and deeply intellectual Zhenya.
L'ABBAZIA CON IL CIELO PER TETTO
Nella Val di Merse, tra i borghi medievali di Chiusdino e Monticiano, sorgono le maestose rovine dell’Abbazia di San Galgano, sede di uno tra i più importanti monasteri toscani. Questo sito include due punti di attrazione: l’Abbazia, con un’enorme chiesa che oggi si presenta senza tetto, e l’Eremo di Montesiepi, che intreccia la sua storia alla leggenda di San Galgano e la sua “spada nella roccia”.
Si sa di San Galgano che fu un giovane nobile che nel XII secolo si convertì e rinunciò alle proprie ricchezze e a una vita dissoluta, prendendo gli abiti cistercensi. Fece costruire nel 1181 una cappella sul Monte Siepi, dove scelse di morire da eremita. Proclamato santo già pochi anni dopo, i monaci dell’ordine costruirono successivamente un oratorio e un edificio in suo onore. È così che prese vita il Monastero di San Galgano, magnifico edificio del quale oggi non sono rimaste che le mura, ma che costituisce tuttavia un prezioso esempio di architettura gotico-cistercense italiana.
Note tratte dal sito:
www.visittuscany.com/it/attrazioni/labbazia-di-san-galgano/
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THE ABBEY WITH THE SKY FOR A ROOF
In the Val di Merse, between the medieval villages of Chiusdino and Monticiano, stand the majestic ruins of the Abbey of San Galgano, home to one of the most important monasteries in Tuscany. This site includes two attractions: the Abbey, with an enormous church that today has no roof, and the Hermitage of Montesiepi, which intertwines its history with the legend of San Galgano and his “sword in the stone”.
It is known that San Galgano was a young nobleman who converted in the 12th century and renounced his wealth and a dissolute life, taking on the Cistercian habit. In 1181, he built a chapel on Monte Siepi, where he chose to die as a hermit. Proclaimed a saint just a few years later, the monks of the order subsequently built an oratory and a building in his honor. This is how the Monastery of San Galgano came to life, a magnificent building of which today only the walls remain, but which nevertheless constitutes a precious example of Italian Gothic-Cistercian architecture.
PANASONIC LUMIX DMC-FX35
Gerard von Honthorst, also known as "Gherardo delle Notti"(Utrecht, November 4, 1592 - Utrecht, April 27, 1656) - The dissolute student or Student among the whores (1625)- oil on canvas 125 x 156 cm - Alte Pinakothek Munich
Gerard von Honthorst, detto anche "Gherardo delle Notti", fu uno dei cosiddetti Caravaggisti di Utrecht, successori di Caravaggio in Olanda. Ha ottenuto il soprannome a causa dei suoi dipinti drammatici e illuminati artificialmente in chiaroscuro - quadri storici ma anche "pezzi notturni" olandesi. Uno di questi è lo studente dissoluto. un esempio di una società moralmente istruttiva e felice uno dei pionieri del caravaggismo olandese.
Nel dipinto sono mostrate in totale cinque persone, che possono essere divise in due gruppi. In primo piano e disposti intorno al tavolo - seduti o in piedi - vediamo lo studente e due giovani donne. Sono tutti vestiti con abiti colorati e pomposi e indossano berretti piumati, lo studente ha una spada attaccata alla cintura. Si siede e con il braccio teso, guarda nella sua tazza per controllare se c'è qualcosa rimasto dentro. Questo motivo è indicato anche con la parola olandese "kannekijker".
Il tavolo è attrezzato a sinistra con alcuni utensili da studio, come un mappamondo e alcuni libri. Particolare attenzione è rivolta al libro aperto, illuminato dalla candela, sul cui lato sinistro è raffigurato un epigramma, a destra un'illustrazione. Ci sono anche piatti con cibo, carte da gioco, dadi e una clessidra sul tavolo.
La giovane donna rumorosa al centro indossa una camicetta, la cui manica destra le cade sulla spalla in modo tale che il suo seno è quasi scoperto. È brillantemente illuminato dall'unica fonte di luce nella foto, una candela che è posizionata al centro a sinistra sul tavolo. È interessante qui che la punta della candela è coperta dalla brocca dello studente, il che la rende una fonte di luce indiretta.
A sinistra della foto si vede un'altra giovane donna che appoggia la mano sinistra sulla spalla dello studente, con la destra indica in direzione di una vecchia con il turbante - che si vede nella parte in alto a sinistra del dipinto - una sensale che è una che porta in braccio dei neonati avvolti in panni e che sembra camminare verso la compagnia felice .
Gerard von Honthorst, also known as "Gherardo delle Notti", was one of the so-called Caravaggisti of Utrecht, Caravaggio's successors in Holland. He got the nickname because of his dramatic, artificially lit chiaroscuro paintings - historical paintings but also Dutch "night pieces." One of them is the dissolute student. an example of a morally instructive and happy society one of the pioneers of Dutch Caravaggism.
In the painting are shown a total of five people, which can be divided into two groups. In the foreground and arranged around the table - sitting or standing - we see the student and two young women. They are all dressed in colorful, pompous robes and wearing feathered caps; the student has a sword attached to his belt. He sits down and with his arm outstretched, looks into his cup to check if there is anything left in it. This motif is also referred to by the Dutch word "kannekijker".
The table is equipped on the left with some study utensils, such as a globe and some books. Particular attention is paid to the open book, lit by the candle, on the left side of which is an epigram, on the right an illustration. There are also plates with food, playing cards, dice and an hourglass on the table.
The loud young woman in the center is wearing a blouse, the right sleeve of which falls over her shoulder so that her breasts are almost exposed. She is brilliantly illuminated by the only source of light in the photo, a candle that is positioned center left on the table. It is interesting here that the tip of the candle is covered by the student's jug, making it an indirect light source.
To the left of the picture we see another young woman resting her left hand on the student's shoulder, with her right hand she points in the direction of an old woman with a turban - which is seen in the upper left part of the painting - a matchmaker who is one carrying infants wrapped in cloths and who seems to be walking towards the happy company .
Pulpit
"The Abbey of Bellapais has drawn visitors to the island of Cyprus since medieval times when the abbey was built. From the pilgrims who trod the ancient paths in search of a miracle through to the holiday makers of today, the abbey has never been short of visitors.
Founded in the early C13th by the Augustinian friars, evicted from the city of Jerusalem, after it fell to Saladin, the first church was established under Aimery Lusignan (ruled 1194-1205). The ecclesiastical building we see now has undergone many changes and been called by different names. It has been “Our blessed Lady Mary of the Mountains”, “L’Abbaye Blanche”, (The White Abbey, so named after the White Canons from the order of St. Norbert), “Abbaye de la Paix” from which came the Venetian corruption of “Bellapaise” that has changed little in the 21stC.
The Abbey Church is dedicated to Ayia Asprophorusa, “Our Lady of the White Garments”.
Endowed with a piece of the True Cross, a gift from a French crusading knight, and with abundant monetary donations from a succession of grateful pilgrims, the abbey grew in richness and pride. It became a venue for the pious, and the wealthy, and was much favoured by the ruling Lusignan royal family.
Over a period of time the monastic order became dissolute and the inevitable decline was hastened by the Genoese invasion of the island in the 14thC. After plundering Kyrenia, the invaders sacked the abbey and in an act of sacrilegious vandalism they stole the holy relic and all the abbey treasures.
A further decline of the abbey buildings took place when stone was removed to build some of the houses which make up the village dwellings today. Eventually after much debate the abbey was placed in the care of the Cyprus Antiquities department and we see it now a celebrated ruin that is a splendid example of Renaissance Gothic architecture in the heart of the Levant." www.northcyprus.co.uk/bellapais-abbey/
"My Lord Keldor! Everything has been arranged as you instructed."
The familiar voice awoke him from his reverie. Keldor. Yes. That had been his name, once. It had been very important to him then, he was sure. But that all seemed - distant. Now, he regarded it as one might a childhood trinket. A reminder of someone he used to be, but ultimately of little relevance.
He eyed the leather gloves he had recently started wearing to conceal his skeletal hands. Yes, there was much that was unsettling about his new circumstances. But it did boast certain - advantages. He turned to face the new arrival.
"So I see, Leofric. Tell me, do you understand these people?"
He gestured impatiently towards the window, through which an ancient ship, recently made barely seaworthy once more, could be seen. An enormous head reared over it, a trio of his subjects screaming as tentacles tightened around the fragile hull.
A faint memory flashed through his mind - a sacrifice of a different sort, when he had claimed his birthright. Then, his subjects had been cheering. Or was that screaming too? What was the difference? It was all so muffled. He shook his head irritably.
"I explained it to them myself. Death is not the end, but a gateway to a new eternity of fulfilling their rightful duty to their lord. Should they not celebrate?"
"Quite so, my liege!" Leofric's grinning features glowed a little brighter in his fervour.
"Take this, for example." He picked up a bottle from the table beside him. "It is a gift from our new... patron." As he shook the bottle, a fat worm drifted lazily within the swirling liquid. "In life, this creature was insignificant. It crawled in the dust, it ate, and defecated. But in death, it has found a new purpose that it could never have imagined. As will my subjects."
He sensed a subtle change in the countenance of his companion. His grin had, perhaps, faded by a few candles.
"Speak, Leofric. Are you not my chamberlain?"
"Sire, why do we remain here and swear fealty to such... dissolute mortals?" Leofric eyed the bottle with obvious distaste. "The vault is working exactly as promised. Each battle swells our ranks with new recruits. Should we not ride forth and sweep across the land? For the honour of the house of Gormenghastly?"
Ah, yes. The honour of Gormenghastly, for which he had already sacrificed so much. He was certain that had seemed
important at the time, too.
"Leofric, my faithful retainer. It is centuries since we left these walls, and the world has changed beyond recognition."
And so have we, the treacherous thought came unbidden to his mind. "There are many new and mighty nations, and powerful forces at work the significance of which we do not yet know; like this 'Kevin'."
He returned his gaze to the scene outside the window, where the scene of destruction was taking its inexorable course.
"Our ascendancy is inevitable. For now we build our strength, watch, and wait. After all, we have no shortage of time."
Pulpit
"The Abbey of Bellapais has drawn visitors to the island of Cyprus since medieval times when the abbey was built. From the pilgrims who trod the ancient paths in search of a miracle through to the holiday makers of today, the abbey has never been short of visitors.
Founded in the early C13th by the Augustinian friars, evicted from the city of Jerusalem, after it fell to Saladin, the first church was established under Aimery Lusignan (ruled 1194-1205). The ecclesiastical building we see now has undergone many changes and been called by different names. It has been “Our blessed Lady Mary of the Mountains”, “L’Abbaye Blanche”, (The White Abbey, so named after the White Canons from the order of St. Norbert), “Abbaye de la Paix” from which came the Venetian corruption of “Bellapaise” that has changed little in the 21stC.
The Abbey Church is dedicated to Ayia Asprophorusa, “Our Lady of the White Garments”.
Endowed with a piece of the True Cross, a gift from a French crusading knight, and with abundant monetary donations from a succession of grateful pilgrims, the abbey grew in richness and pride. It became a venue for the pious, and the wealthy, and was much favoured by the ruling Lusignan royal family.
Over a period of time the monastic order became dissolute and the inevitable decline was hastened by the Genoese invasion of the island in the 14thC. After plundering Kyrenia, the invaders sacked the abbey and in an act of sacrilegious vandalism they stole the holy relic and all the abbey treasures.
A further decline of the abbey buildings took place when stone was removed to build some of the houses which make up the village dwellings today. Eventually after much debate the abbey was placed in the care of the Cyprus Antiquities department and we see it now a celebrated ruin that is a splendid example of Renaissance Gothic architecture in the heart of the Levant." www.northcyprus.co.uk/bellapais-abbey/
Art museum Bonn - architect Axel Schultes - 1992
The Kunstmuseum Bonn is a highlight of the federal city of Bonn, not only because of its collection, but also because of its outstanding architecture, which does not need to be compared in international terms. The construction of Axel Schultes with its sophisticated "flowing" room concept offers impressive conditions, both in terms of the dimensioning of the individual rooms, their visual and material development axes as well as with regard to the lighting, art in all its facets, from classical modernism to optimally present the varieties of recent art. After the museum had been housed in confined space in Bonn's city center for many years, the building planned for the mid-eighties by the architectural team Dietrich Bangert, Bernd Jansen, Stefan Scholz and Axel Schultes (BJSS) was opened in June 1992. As part of Bonn's Museum Mile, the architecture captivates both the outside and the inside with its openness and lighting. The discreet, but by no means sober language of forms, which includes quite playful components, does not lose itself in a self-loving celebration of architecture. Committed in their size to the spirit of the late eighties, the building is completely subordinated to its serving function as a place of exhibition of the fine arts in practical terms. Connected to the main house by a dissolute roof (in sail form) is a narrow building, which possesses the same sandstone facade. It screens the actual museum building like a wall opposite the noise of busy B9 and houses the administration as well as the educational facilities, where numerous activities start. There is a connection to the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany via the Museumsplatz. The building planned by Gustav Peichl was also opened in June 1992 and marked together with the Kunstmuseum the beginning of the meanwhile considerably grown Bonn museum mile.
"Time Passes, Listen Time Passes"
Among other anniverseries, 1914 is the centenary of the birth of Dylan Thomas, one of Swansea’s most famous (and dissolute) sons. We popped over to the village of Laugharne yesterday, not consciously on a “pilgrimage” but simply because it’s a very nice place. Thomas spend the last four years here and wrote some of his late masterpieces, including Under Milk Wood, at the Boathouse (pictured). His writing studio is preserved and has seeping wonderful views of Carmarthen Bay from Swansea all the way to the tip of Pembrokeshire. Stunning.
What a loss at the age of 38, I wonder how his poetry would have evolved into (respectable?) maturity
"It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
And the mussel pooled and the heron
priested shore
The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall
Myself to set foot
That second
In the still sleeping town and set forth".
I had to change Declan as his outfit was needed for another guy... so I just dressed him in some random clothes and suddenly he became another character! Dorian Gray, the beautiful young man who stays beautiful no matter how wicked and dissolute he becomes... but the same cannot be said for his portrait. The portrait painted of him when he was young and beautiful gradually starts to change and deform and eventually becomes hideous. I made the portrait of Declan/Dorian using PicsArt and adding various effects. Then I printed it on photo paper and used a craquelure glaze on it to give it an antique oil painting effect. Most of the other objects in the picture are thift store finds...... I tried to include memento mori elements and others relating to beauty and vanity.. some can be seen others not.
I had to change Declan as his outfit was needed for another guy... so I just dressed him in some random clothes and suddenly he became another character! Dorian Gray, the beautiful young man who stays beautiful no matter how wicked and dissolute he becomes... but the same cannot be said for his portrait. The portrait painted of him when he was young and beautiful gradually starts to change and deform and eventually becomes hideous. I made the portrait of Declan/Dorian using PicsArt and adding various effects. Then I printed it on photo paper and used a craquelure glaze on it to give it an antique oil painting effect. Most of the other objects in the picture are thift store finds...... I tried to include memento mori elements and others relating to beauty and vanity.. some can be seen others not.