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ARTIST Mirza Ajanovic, POETIC Photography,
OPUS Sarajevo City of Light;
SARAJEVO WAR 1994; BOSNIA in Tragic WAR,
POETIC Beauty and Strength of the Human Spirit, City Life and Street Scenes,
Picture is based on light and darkness counterpoints, with elements of Chiaroscuro, Observation of physical and psychological reality… while, acutely observed realism brought a new level of Emotional intensity, Strong, dramatic expression…
Perception beyond Appearances, Symbolism, POETIC TransRealism;
Mirza Ajanovic Fine ART Photography,
My photographs and videos and any derivative works are my private property and are copyright © by me, John Russell (aka “Zoom Lens”) and ALL my rights, including my exclusive rights, are reserved. ANY use without my permission in writing is forbidden by law.
This is a metaphysical exercise exploring dimensions of time with a camera. The bored period of inactivity forced on the artist by the maritime gods was inconsequential to him, but represented a significant portion of the lifetime of a moth. The effect is heightened by the long exposure used to capture the movement of the moth with a series of photons whose lifetime can be measured in nanoseconds. The bored artist, the moth, and the photons all combine to make a stunningly ironic commentary on the fleeting nature of life, the meaningless randomness of man's activities, and the concept of an artist's statement.
For more information about my craft, please visit my profile page.
WATERFALL MIST is a 150 carat handcrafted blue stripes agate pendant that I created swirling and shaping sterling silver plate wire by hand, adding Swarovski crystals and glass beads to enhance the natural beauty and shape of the stone. This glass-like stone has striations of white throughout its beautiful shade of light sky blue.
It measures 1 1/4" across and 2 1/2" top to tip including the bail.
The bail is designed to be large enough to accommodate your favorite chain, choker or cord. A 17" silver plate chain is included.
All purchases are nicely packaged in a gift box.
The following metaphysical healing properties have been collected from various sources. For more specific information please contact an experienced Crystal Therapist.
Agate's healing effects:
Agate provides for balancing of Yin/Yang energy and for balancing of the physical, emotional and intellectual bodies with the Etheric energies. It stabilises the aura, providing for a cleansing effect that acts to smooth dysfunctional energies and to both transform and eliminate negativity. It further, assists one in the development of precision in examination of oneself and of circumstances relevant to ones well being. Agate can be used to stimulate analytical capabilities and precision. It provides for perceptiveness to situations and awakens ones inherent talents and adroitness. It is also used to produce inspiration from and connectedness with the entities residing in the spiritual worlds. It has been reported to strengthen the sight, to diminish thirst and to promote marital fidelity.
Chakras: Base, Earth Star, Heart, Link, Navel, Sacral, Solar Plexus, Throat, Thymus
Astrological sign: Gemini
this is a composite of the last three picts (details below). i find this surreal and moving on an emotional level... earth, dust, plantlife, soil, solemn, prayer book, praying, meditation, it's about a "blending" of the physical and metaphysical...
To discover that metaphysical Tree which hid
From my worldling look its brilliant vein
Far deeper in gross wood
Than axe could cut.
But before I might blind sense
To see with the spotless soul,
Each particular quirk so ravished me
Every pock and stain bulked more beautiful
Than flesh of any body
Flawed by love's prints.
— Sylvia Plath “On The Plethora Of Dryads”
For more information about my craft, please visit my profile page.
DIVINE is a 45 carat handcrafted natural turquoise pendant that I created swirling and shaping sterling silver filled wire by hand, adding black agate beads and turquoise chips to enhance the natural beauty and shape of the stone.
It measures 1 1/2" across and 2 3/4" top to tip including the bail.
The bail is designed to be large enough to accommodate your favorite chain, choker or cord. A 17" silver plate chain is included.
All purchases are nicely packaged in a gift box.
The following metaphysical healing properties have been collected from various sources. For more specific information please contact an experienced Crystal Therapist.
Turquoise's healing effects:
This stone is a very personal and meaningful stone. It takes on the characteristics of the owner. It carries great wisdom of basic truth within it. A symbol of friendship. It also brings peace to the home. It is one of the oldest stones known and has been used for centuries as a protective stone. It's sacred to both Native American and oriental traditions. It has a calming influence, instills wisdom, loyalty, self-realization, promotes honest and clear communication from the heart and helps with creative problem solving. The psychic powers are enhanced when meditating with it. It has an "elevating" effect and can unite the energies of the earth and the skies to promote healing for ones spirit. It strengthens and aligns all chakras, meridians and subtle bodies. Another "All Purpose" healing stone like amethyst, it's fosters empathy, positive thinking and sensitivity. It acts on the immune system and therefore heals the whole body. Also effective in neutralizing over acidity, alleviating rheumatism, gout, stomach problems, viral infections, increases growth, muscular strength, pain, relaxes cramps and contains anti-inflammatory and detoxifying effects.
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection
[Bibliography]
Peggy Guggenheim's career belongs in the history of 20th century art. Peggy used to say that it was her duty to protect the art of her own time, and she dedicated half of her life to this mission, as well as to the creation of the museum that still carries her name.
Peggy Guggenheim was born in New York on 26 August 1898, the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim and Florette Seligman. Benjamin Guggenheim was one of seven brothers who, with their father, Meyer (of Swiss origin), created a family fortune in the late 19th century from the mining and smelting of metals, especially silver, copper and lead. The Seligmans were a leading banking family. Peggy grew up in New York. In April 1912 her father died heroically on the SS Titanic. (1)
In her early 20s, Peggy volunteered for work at a bookshop, the Sunwise Turn, in New York and thanks to this began making friends in intellectual and artistic circles, including the man who was to become her first husband in Paris in 1922, Laurence Vail. Vail was a writer and Dada collagist of great talent. He chronicled his tempestuous life with Peggy in a novel, Murder! Murder! of which Peggy wrote: "It was a sort of satire of our life together and, although it was extremely funny, I took offense at several things he said about me."
In 1921 Peggy Guggenheim traveled to Europe. Thanks to Laurence Vail (the father of her two children Sindbad and Pegeen, the painter), Peggy soon found herself at the heart of Parisian bohème and American ex-patriate society. Many of her acquaintances of the time, such as Constantin Brancusi, Djuna Barnes and Marcel Duchamp, were to become lifelong friends. Though she remained on good terms with Vail for the rest of his life, she left him in 1928 for an English intellectual, John Holms, who was the greatest love of her life. There is a lengthy description of John Holms, a war hero with writer's block, in chapter five of Edwin Muir's An Autobiography. Muir wrote: "Holms was the most remarkable man I ever met." Unfortunately, Holms died tragically young in 1934.
In 1937, encouraged by her friend Peggy Waldman, Peggy decided to open an art gallery in London. When she opened her Guggenheim Jeune gallery in January 1938, she was beginning, at 39 years old, a career which would significantly affect the course of post-war art. Her friend Samuel Beckett urged her to dedicate herself to contemporary art as it was âa living thing,â and Marcel Duchamp introduced her to the artists and taught her, as she put it, âthe difference between abstract and Surrealist art.â The first show presented works by Jean Cocteau, while the second was the first one-man show of Vasily Kandinsky in England.
In 1939, tired of her gallery, Peggy conceived âthe idea of opening a modern museum in London,â with her friend Herbert Read as its director (2). From the start the museum was to be formed on historical principles, and a list of all the artists that should be represented, drawn up by Read and later revised by Marcel Duchamp and Nellie van Doesburg, was to become the basis of her collection.
In 1939-40, apparently oblivious of the war, Peggy busily acquired works for the future museum, keeping to her resolve to âbuy a picture a day.â Some of the masterpieces of her collection, such as works by Francis Picabia, Georges Braque, Salvador DalÃ- and Piet Mondrian, were bought at that time. She astonished Fernand Léger by buying his Men in the City on the day that Hitler invaded Norway. She acquired Brancusiâs Bird in Space as the Germans approached Paris, and only then decided to flee the city.
In July 1941, Peggy fled Nazi-occupied France and returned to her native New York, together with Max Ernst, who was to become her second husband a few months later (they separated in 1943).
Peggy immediately began looking for a location for her modern art museum, while she continued to acquire works for her collection. In October 1942 she opened her museum/gallery Art of This Century. Designed by the Rumanian-Austrian architect Frederick Kiesler, the gallery was composed of extraordinarily innovative exhibition rooms and soon became the most stimulating venue for contemporary art in New York City. (3)
Of the opening night, she wrote: âI wore one of my Tanguy earrings and one made by Calder in order to show my impartiality between Surrealist and Abstract Art" (4). There Peggy exhibited her collection of Cubist, abstract and Surrealist art, which was already substantially that which we see today in Venice. Peggy produced a remarkable catalogue, edited by André Breton, with a cover design by Max Ernst. She held temporary exhibitions of leading European artists, and of several then unknown young Americans such as Robert Motherwell, William Baziotes, Mark Rothko, David Hare, Janet Sobel, Robert de Niro Sr, Clyfford Still, and Jackson Pollock, the âstarâ of the gallery, who was given his first show by Peggy late in 1943. From July 1943 Peggy supported Pollock with a monthly stipend and actively promoted and sold his paintings. She commissioned his largest painting, a Mural, which she later gave to the University of Iowa.
Pollock and the others pioneered American Abstract Expressionism. One of the principal sources of this was Surrealism, which the artists encountered at Art of This Century. More important, however, was the encouragement and support that Peggy, together with her friend and assistant Howard Putzel, gave to the members of this nascent New York avant-garde. Peggy and her collection thus played a vital intermediary role in the development of Americaâs first art movement of international importance.
In 1947 Peggy decided to return in Europe, where her collection was shown for the first time at the 1948 Venice Biennale, in the Greek pavilion (5). In this way the works of artists such as Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko were exhibited for the first time in Europe. The presence of Cubist, abstract, and Surrealist art made the pavilion the most coherent survey of Modernism yet to have been presented in Italy.
Soon after Peggy bought Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, on the Grand Canal in Venice, where she came to live. In 1949 she held an exhibition of sculptures in the garden (6) curated by Giuseppe Marchiori, and from 1951 she opened her collection to the public.
In 1950 Peggy organized the first exhibition of Jackson Pollock in Italy, in the Ala Napoleonica of the Museo Correr in Venice. Her collection was in the meantime exhibited in Florence and Milan, and later in Amsterdam, Brussels, and Zurich. From 1951 Peggy opened her house and her collection to the public annually in the summer months. During her 30-year Venetian life, Peggy Guggenheim continued to collect works of art and to support artists, such as Edmondo Bacci and Tancredi Parmeggiani, whom she met in 1951. In 1962 Peggy Guggenheim was nominated Honorary Citizen of Venice.
In 1969 the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York invited Peggy Guggenheim to show her collection there. In 1976 she donated her palace and works of art to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. The Foundation had been created in 1937 by Peggy Guggenheimâs uncle Solomon, in order to operate his collection and museum which, since 1959, has been housed in Frank Lloyd Wrightâs famous spiral structure on 5th Avenue.
Peggy died aged 81 on 23 December 1979. Her ashes are placed in a corner of the garden of Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, next to the place where she customarily buried her beloved dogs. Since this time, the Guggenheim Foundation has converted and expanded Peggy Guggenheim's private house into one of the finest small museums of modern art in the world.
[Info]
Address
Peggy Guggenheim Collection
Palazzo Venier dei Leoni
Dorsoduro 701
I-30123 Venezia
Opening hours
Daily 10 am - 6 pm
Closed Tuesdays and December 25
General information
tel: +39.041.2405.411
fax: +39.041.520.6885
e-mail: info@guggenheim-venice.it
Visitor services
tel: +39.041.2405.440/419
fax: +39.041.520.9083
e-mail: visitorinfo@guggenheim-venice.it
Photography
Photography is permitted without flash. You may not use tripods or monopods.
Animals
Animals of all sizes are not allowed in the galleries and in the gardens.
For information and assistance please contact "Sporting Dog Club".
Call Tel. +39 347 6242550 (Marie) or +39 347 4161321 (Roberto)
or write to sportingdoginvenice@gmail.com
Venice Art for All
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection joins the Venice Art for All project and becomes accessible to all, including people with limited mobility.
Palazzo Venier dei Leoni was probably begun in the 1750s by architect Lorenzo Boschetti, whose only other known building in Venice is the church of San Barnaba.
It is an unfinished palace. A model exists in the Museo Correr, Venice (1). Its magnificent classical façade would have matched that of Palazzo Corner, opposite, with the triple arch of the ground floor (which is the explanation of the ivy-covered pillars visible today) extended through both the piani nobili above. We do not know precisely why this Venier palace was left unfinished. Money may have run out, or some say that the powerful Corner family living opposite blocked the completion of a building that would have been grander than their own. Another explanation may rest with the unhappy fate of the next door Gothic palace which was demolished in the early 19th century: structural damage to this was blamed in part on the deep foundations of Palazzo Venier dei Leoni.
Nor is it known how the palace came to be associated with "leoni," lions. Although it is said that a lion was once kept in the garden, the name is more likely to have arisen from the yawning lion's heads of Istrian stone which decorate the façade at water level (2). The Venier family, who claimed descent from the gens Aurelia of ancient Rome (the Emperor Valerian and Gallienus were from this family), were among the oldest Venetian noble families. Over the centuries they provided eighteen Procurators of St Markâs and three Doges. Antonio Venier (Doge, 1382-1400) had such a strong sense of justice that he allowed his own son to languish and die in prison for his crimes. Francesco Venier (Doge, 1553-56) was the subject of a superb portrait by Titian (Madrid, Fundaciòn Thyssen-Bornemisza). Sebastiano Venier was a commander of the Venetian fleet at the Battle of Lepanto (1571) and later became Doge (1577-78). A lively strutting statue of him, by Antonio dal Zotto (1907), can be seen today in the church of Ss. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice.
From 1910 to c. 1924 the house was owned by the flamboyant Marchesa Luisa Casati, hostess to the Ballets Russes, and the subject of numerous portraits by artists as various as Boldini, Troubetzkoy, Man Ray and Augustus John. In 1949, Peggy Guggenheim purchased Palazzo Venier from the heirs of Viscountes Castlerosse and made it her home for the following thirty years. Early in 1951, Peggy Guggenheim opened her home and collection to the public and continued to do so every year until her death in 1979. (3) (4)
In 1980, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection opened for the first time under the management of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, to which Peggy Guggenheim had given her palazzo and collection during her lifetime.
Palazzo Venier dei Leoni's long low façade, made of Istrian stone and set off against the trees in the garden behind that soften its lines, forms a welcome "caesura" in the stately march of Grand Canal palaces from the Accademia to the Salute.
[Permanent collection]
The core mission of the museum is to present the personal collection of Peggy Guggenheim. The collection holds major works of Cubism, Futurism, Metaphysical painting, European abstraction, avant-garde sculpture, Surrealism, and American Abstract Expressionism, by some of the greatest artists of the 20th century. These include Picasso (The Poet, On the Beach), Braque (The Clarinet), Duchamp (Sad Young Man on a Train), Léger, Brancusi (Maiastra, Bird in Space), Severini (Sea=Dancer), Picabia (Very Rare Picture on Earth), de Chirico (The Red Tower, The Nostalgia of the Poet), Mondrian (Composition No. 1 with Grey and Red 1938 / Composition with Red 1939), Kandinsky (Landscape with Red Spots, No. 2, White Cross), Miró (Seated Woman II), Giacometti Woman with Her Throat Cut, Woman Walking), Klee (Magic Garden), Ernst (The Kiss, Attirement of the Bride), Magritte (Empire of Light), DalÃ- (Birth of Liquid Desires), Pollock (The Moon Woman, Alchemy), Gorky (Untitled), Calder (Arc of Petals) and Marini (Angel of the City).
The museum also exhibits works of art given to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation for its Venetian museum since Peggy Guggenheim's death, as well as long-term loans from private collections.
Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Collection
In October 2012 eighty works of Italian, European and American art of the decades after 1945 were added to the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in Venice. They were the bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, who collected the works with her late husband Rudolph B. Schulhof. They include paintings by Burri, Dubuffet, Fontana, Hofmann, Kelly, Kiefer, Noland, Rothko, and Twombly, as well as sculptures by Calder, Caro, Holzer, Judd and Hepworth. The Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Garden exhibits works from this collection.
Gianni Mattioli Collection
The museum exhibits twenty six masterpieces on long-term loan from the renowned Gianni Mattioli Collection, including famous images of Italian Futurism, such as Materia and Dynamism of a Cyclist by Boccioni, Interventionist Demonstration by Carrà , The Solidity of Fog by Russolo, works by Balla, Severini (Blue Dancer), Sironi, Soffici, Rosai, Depero. The collection includes important early paintings by Morandi and a rare portrait by Modigliani.
Patsy R. and Raymond D. Nasher Sculpture Garden
The Patsy R. and Raymond D. Nasher Sculpture Garden and other outdoor spaces at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection presents works from the permanent collections (by Arp, Duchamp-Villon, Ernst, Flanagan, Giacometti, Gilardi, Goldsworthy, Holzer, Marini, Minguzzi, Mirko, Merz, Moore, Ono, Paladino, Richier, Takis), as well as sculptures on temporary loan from foundations and private collections (by Calder, König , Marini, Nannucci, Smith).
For more information about my craft, please visit my profile page.
INDIGO is a 145 carat handcrafted dark blue sodalite pendant that I created swirling and shaping sterling silver plate wire by hand to enhance the natural beauty and shape of the stone. This large dramatic gemstone has striations of navy, royal blue and white.
It measures 1 3/4" across and 2 3/4" top to tip including the bail.
The bail is designed to be large enough to accommodate your favorite chain, choker or cord. A 17" silver plate chain is included.
All purchases are nicely packaged in a gift box.
The following metaphysical healing properties have been collected from various sources. For more specific information please contact an experienced Crystal Therapist.
Sodalite's healing effects:
Sodalite is known to stimulate thinking and truthfulness in emotions. Sodalite is helpful for people that are sensitive to others sicknesses. Physically, it can assist one with clearing their throat, vocal cord problems, hoarseness, fevers, digestive disorders, and lower blood pressure. Sodalite is an excellent stone for the mind, it will ease mental confusion and intellectual bondage. Sodalite will encourage intellectual thought, rational thought, objectivity and truth. It will help one to verbalize their thoughts and calm the mind. Sodalite can help one to understand ideas.
The White Terror oscillates between this world and the next, dragging his victim in a void from which there is no escape. The humid air turns to twirls of steam as it touches his cloak, and the feedback sparked by a multi-dimensional paradox electrifies the Cage, sending pulses of energy that splash through its metallic foundations.
Mr Rankine’s life hangs by a string. Pain surges through his nervous system, overloading his senses. His eyes glaze over from the powerful current of electric charge flowing through his spinal chord. Hope looks dim. Defeat seems imminent.
But never underestimate the conviction of a cornered dog. Or the tricks of a certain Mr Rankine.
For more information about my craft, please visit my profile page.
PURPLE MOUNTAINS is a 140 carat handcrafted Exotica Jasper gemstone pendant that I created swirling and shaping silver plate wire by hand, adding mauve tourmaline chips, lavender fresh water pearls and shell beads to enhance the natural beauty, color and shape of the stone. The purple, lavender, gray and pink colors in this stone create a mountainous landscape before your eyes. The combination of the elegant, swirly silver wire setting, together with the earthy and dramatic gemstone creates a very versatile piece of wearable art that can be worn with a party dress or your favorite casual jeans. Stylish Care More pendants are sure to add a touch of natural drama to your fashion wardrobe
It measures 1 1/2" across and 2 3/4" top to tip including the bail.
The bail is designed to be large enough to accommodate your favorite chain, choker or cord. Your gift of a 17" silver plate chain is included.
All purchases are nicely packaged in a gift box.
The following metaphysical healing properties have been collected from various sources. For more specific information please contact an experienced Crystal Therapist.
Jasper's healing effects:
Healing Stone of Love and Calm.
Jasper is the stone of selflessness; it is the mother of all stones bringing about Love of all mankind. Red jasper assists in transmuting pain, especially menstrual pain. To draw away focus from pain, back to the centre. For emotional, mental and physical pain, it is a grounding and healing stone. Jasper makes its effects known slowly and gradually, just like nature. It's considered an emotionally calming stone, and can be an excellent stone for either those who are hypersensitive to crystalline energy and find it difficult to work with, or for those who like change to be a gradual, unfolding process.
Chakras: All
Astrological sign: Virgo, Libra, Scorpio
A comment from my friend, Rob, this morning whether I had snapped the John Donne memorial in St Pauls back in April, made me look through my shots to find a few more memorials I have yet to post.
So, for Rob, and you all, this is/was, John Dunner:
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John Donne (/ˈdʌn/ dun) (22 January 1572[1] – 31 March 1631) was an English poet and a cleric in the Church of England. He is considered the pre-eminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His works are noted for their strong, sensual style and include sonnets, love poems, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires and sermons. His poetry is noted for its vibrancy of language and inventiveness of metaphor, especially compared to that of his contemporaries. Donne's style is characterised by abrupt openings and various paradoxes, ironies and dislocations. These features, along with his frequent dramatic or everyday speech rhythms, his tense syntax and his tough eloquence, were both a reaction against the smoothness of conventional Elizabethan poetry and an adaptation into English of European baroque and mannerist techniques. His early career was marked by poetry that bore immense knowledge of English society and he met that knowledge with sharp criticism. Another important theme in Donne's poetry is the idea of true religion, something that he spent much time considering and about which he often theorized. He wrote secular poems as well as erotic and love poems. He is particularly famous for his mastery of metaphysical conceits.[2]
Despite his great education and poetic talents, Donne lived in poverty for several years, relying heavily on wealthy friends. He spent much of the money he inherited during and after his education on womanising, literature, pastimes, and travel. In 1601, Donne secretly married Anne More, with whom he had twelve children.[3] In 1615, he became an Anglican priest, although he did not want to take Anglican orders. He did so because King James I persistently ordered it. In 1621, he was appointed the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London. He also served as a member of parliament in 1601 and in 1614.
Donne was born in London, into a recusant Roman Catholic family when practice of that religion was illegal in England.[5] Donne was the third of six children. His father, also named John Donne, was of Welsh descent and a warden of the Ironmongers Company in the City of London. Donne's father was a respected Roman Catholic who avoided unwelcome government attention out of fear of persecution.[6][7]
His father died in 1576, when Donne was four years old, leaving his son fatherless and his widow, Elizabeth Heywood, with the responsibility of raising their children alone.[1] Heywood was also from a recusant Roman Catholic family, the daughter of John Heywood, the playwright, and sister of the Reverend Jasper Heywood, a Jesuit priest and translator.[1] She was a great-niece of the Roman Catholic martyr Thomas More.[1] This tradition of martyrdom would continue among Donne's closer relatives, many of whom were executed or exiled for religious reasons.[8] Donne was educated privately; however, there is no evidence to support the popular claim that he was taught by Jesuits.[1] Donne's mother married Dr. John Syminges, a wealthy widower with three children, a few months after Donne's father died. Donne thus acquired a stepfather. Two more of his sisters, Mary and Katherine, died in 1581. Donne's mother lived her last years in the Deanery after Donne became Dean of St Paul's, and died just two months before Donne, in January 1631 [1].
In 1583, the 11-year-old Donne began studies at Hart Hall, now Hertford College, Oxford. After three years of studies there, Donne was admitted to the University of Cambridge, where he studied for another three years.[9] However, Donne could not obtain a degree from either institution because of his Catholicism, since he refused to take the Oath of Supremacy required of graduates.[10]
In 1591 Donne was accepted as a student at the Thavies Inn legal school, one of the Inns of Chancery in London.[1] On 6 May 1592 he was admitted to Lincoln's Inn, one of the Inns of Court.[1] In 1593, five years after the defeat of the Spanish Armada and during the intermittent Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604), Queen Elizabeth issued the first English statute against sectarian dissent from the Church of England, titled "An Act for restraining Popish recusants". It defined "Popish recusants" as those "convicted for not repairing to some Church, Chapel, or usual place of Common Prayer to hear Divine Service there, but forbearing the same contrary to the tenor of the laws and statutes heretofore made and provided in that behalf". Donne's brother Henry was also a university student prior to his arrest in 1593 for harbouring a Catholic priest, William Harrington, whom he betrayed under torture.[5] Harrington was tortured on the rack, hanged until not quite dead, and then subjected to disembowelment.[5] Henry Donne died in Newgate prison of bubonic plague, leading Donne to begin questioning his Catholic faith.[7]
During and after his education, Donne spent much of his considerable inheritance on women, literature, pastimes and travel.[6] Although no record details precisely where Donne travelled, he did cross Europe and later fought with the Earl of Essex and Sir Walter Raleigh against the Spanish at Cadiz (1596) and the Azores (1597), and witnessed the loss of the Spanish flagship, the San Felipe.[1][11] According to Izaak Walton, who wrote a biography of Donne in 1658:
... he returned not back into England till he had stayed some years, first in Italy, and then in Spain, where he made many useful observations of those countries, their laws and manner of government, and returned perfect in their languages.
— Izaak Walton[12]
By the age of 25 he was well prepared for the diplomatic career he appeared to be seeking.[11] He was appointed chief secretary to the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, Sir Thomas Egerton, and was established at Egerton's London home, York House, Strand close to the Palace of Whitehall, then the most influential social centre in England.
During the next four years Donne fell in love with Egerton's niece Anne More, and they were secretly married just before Christmas[5] in 1601, against the wishes of both Egerton and George More, who was Lieutenant of the Tower and Anne's father. Upon discovery, this wedding ruined Donne's career, getting him fired and put in Fleet Prison, along with minister Samuel Brooke, who married them,[13] and the man who acted as a witness to the wedding. Donne was released shortly thereafter when the marriage was proven valid, and he soon secured the release of the other two. Walton tells us that when Donne wrote to his wife to tell her about losing his post, he wrote after his name: John Donne, Anne Donne, Un-done. It was not until 1609 that Donne was reconciled with his father-in-law and received his wife's dowry.
Part of the house where Donne lived in Pyrford
After his release, Donne had to accept a retired country life in a small house in Pyrford, Surrey owned by Anne's cousin, Sir Francis Wooley, where they resided until the end of 1604.[1][14] In spring 1605 they moved to another small house in Mitcham, London, where he scraped a meager living as a lawyer,[15] while Anne Donne bore a new baby almost every year. Though he also worked as an assistant pamphleteer to Thomas Morton writing anti-Catholic pamphlets, Donne was in a constant state of financial insecurity.[1]
Anne bore John 12 children in 16 years of marriage (including two stillbirths — their eighth and then, in 1617, their last child); indeed, she spent most of her married life either pregnant or nursing. The 10 surviving children were Constance, John, George, Francis, Lucy (named after Donne's patroness Lucy, Countess of Bedford, her godmother), Bridget, Mary, Nicholas, Margaret, and Elizabeth. Three (Francis, Nicholas, and Mary) died before they were ten. In a state of despair that almost drove him to kill himself, Donne noted that the death of a child would mean one mouth fewer to feed, but he could not afford the burial expenses. During this time, Donne wrote but did not publish Biathanatos, his defense of suicide.[8] His wife died on 15 August 1617, five days after giving birth to their twelfth child, a still-born baby.[1] Donne mourned her deeply, and wrote of his love and loss in his 17th Holy Sonnet.
In 1602 John Donne was elected as Member of Parliament for the constituency of Brackley, but this was not a paid position.[1] Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603, being succeeded by King James I of Scotland. The fashion for coterie poetry of the period gave Donne a means to seek patronage, and many of his poems were written for wealthy friends or patrons, especially MP Sir Robert Drury of Hawsted (1575–1615), whom he met in 1610 and became Donne's chief patron, furnishing him and his family an apartment in his large house in Drury Lane.[11]
In 1610 and 1611 Donne wrote two anti-Catholic polemics: Pseudo-Martyr and Ignatius his Conclave for Morton.[1] He then wrote two Anniversaries, An Anatomy of the World (1611) and Of the Progress of the Soul[17] (1612) for Drury. Although James was pleased with Donne's work, he refused to reinstate him at court and instead urged him to take holy orders.[7] At length, Donne acceded to the king's wishes, and in 1615 was ordained into the Church of England.[11]
In 1615 Donne was awarded an honorary doctorate in divinity from Cambridge University, and became a Royal Chaplain in the same year, and a Reader of Divinity at Lincoln's Inn in 1616,[1] where he served in the chapel as minister until 1622.[18] In 1618 he became chaplain to Viscount Doncaster, who was on an embassy to the princes of Germany. Donne did not return to England until 1620.[14] In 1621 Donne was made Dean of St Paul's, a leading and well-paid position in the Church of England, which he held until his death in 1631. During his period as dean his daughter Lucy died, aged eighteen. In late November and early December 1623 he suffered a nearly fatal illness, thought to be either typhus or a combination of a cold followed by a period of fever. During his convalescence he wrote a series of meditations and prayers on health, pain, and sickness that were published as a book in 1624 under the title of Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. One of these meditations, Meditation XVII, later became well known for its phrases "No man is an Iland" (often modernised as "No man is an island") and "...for whom the bell tolls". In 1624 he became vicar of St Dunstan-in-the-West, and 1625 a prolocutor to Charles I.[1] He earned a reputation as an eloquent preacher and 160 of his sermons have survived, including the famous Death’s Duel sermon delivered at the Palace of Whitehall before King Charles I in February 1631.
It is thought that Donne's final illness was stomach cancer, although this has not been proven. He died on 31 March 1631 having written many poems, most of which were circulated in manuscript during his lifetime. Donne was buried in old St Paul's Cathedral, where a memorial statue of him was erected (carved from a drawing of him in his shroud), with a Latin epigraph probably composed by himself. Donne's monument survived the 1666 fire, and is on display in the present building.
Donne's earliest poems showed a developed knowledge of English society coupled with sharp criticism of its problems. His satires dealt with common Elizabethan topics, such as corruption in the legal system, mediocre poets, and pompous courtiers. His images of sickness, vomit, manure, and plague reflected his strongly satiric view of a world populated by all the fools and knaves of England. His third satire, however, deals with the problem of true religion, a matter of great importance to Donne. He argued that it was better to examine carefully one's religious convictions than blindly to follow any established tradition, for none would be saved at the Final Judgment, by claiming "A Harry, or a Martin taught [them] this."[8]
Donne's early career was also notable for his erotic poetry, especially his elegies, in which he employed unconventional metaphors, such as a flea biting two lovers being compared to sex.[11] In Elegy XIX: To His Mistris Going to Bed, he poetically undressed his mistress and compared the act of fondling to the exploration of America. In Elegy XVIII, he compared the gap between his lover's breasts to the Hellespont.[11] Donne did not publish these poems, although he did allow them to circulate widely in manuscript form.[11]
... any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee..
— Donne, Meditation XVII[20]
Some have speculated that Donne's numerous illnesses, financial strain, and the deaths of his friends all contributed to the development of a more somber and pious tone in his later poems.[11] The change can be clearly seen in "An Anatomy of the World" (1611), a poem that Donne wrote in memory of Elizabeth Drury, daughter of his patron, Sir Robert Drury of Hawstead, Suffolk. This poem treats Elizabeth's demise with extreme gloominess, using it as a symbol for the Fall of Man and the destruction of the universe.[11]
The poem "A Nocturnal upon S. Lucy's Day, Being the Shortest Day", concerns the poet's despair at the death of a loved one. In it Donne expresses a feeling of utter negation and hopelessness, saying that "I am every dead thing ... re-begot / Of absence, darkness, death." This famous work was probably written in 1627 when both Donne's friend Lucy, Countess of Bedford, and his daughter Lucy Donne died. Three years later, in 1630, Donne wrote his will on Saint Lucy's day (13 December), the date the poem describes as "Both the year's, and the day's deep midnight".
The increasing gloominess of Donne's tone may also be observed in the religious works that he began writing during the same period. His early belief in the value of scepticism now gave way to a firm faith in the traditional teachings of the Bible. Having converted to the Anglican Church, Donne focused his literary career on religious literature. He quickly became noted for his sermons and religious poems. The lines of these sermons and devotional works would come to influence future works of English literature, such as Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, which took its title from a passage in Meditation XVII of Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, and Thomas Merton's No Man is an Island, which took its title from the same source.
Towards the end of his life Donne wrote works that challenged death, and the fear that it inspired in many men, on the grounds of his belief that those who die are sent to Heaven to live eternally. One example of this challenge is his Holy Sonnet X, Death Be Not Proud, from which come the famous lines "Death, be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so." Even as he lay dying during Lent in 1631, he rose from his sickbed and delivered the Death's Duel sermon, which was later described as his own funeral sermon. Death's Duel portrays life as a steady descent to suffering and death, yet sees hope in salvation and immortality through an embrace of God, Christ and the Resurrection.
A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.
Walt Whitman
Morning glory (also written as morning-glory[1]) is the common name for over 1,000 species of flowering plants in the family Convolvulaceae, whose current taxonomy and systematics are in flux. Morning glory species belong to many genera, some of which are:
Argyreia
Astripomoea
Calystegia
Convolvulus
Ipomoea
Lepistemon
Merremia
Operculina
Rivea
Stictocardia
Morning glory was first known in China for its medicinal uses, due to the laxative properties of its seeds.
Ancient Mesoamerican civilizations used the morning glory species Ipomoea alba to convert the latex from the Castilla elastica tree and also the guayule plant to produce bouncing rubber balls [2]. The sulfur in the morning glory's juice served to vulcanize the rubber, a process predating Charles Goodyear's discovery by at least 3,000 years.[3] Aztec priests in Mexico were also known to use the plant's hallucinogenic properties (see Rivea corymbosa).
IMG_7842.jpgh
The community of Bombay Beach, CA alongside the Salton Sea is home to an organization of artists called the The Bombay Beach Institute of Particle Physics, Metaphysics & International Relations. They present the annual Bombay Beach Biennale.
For more information about my craft, please visit my profile page.
This 125 carat handcrafted pink dragon vein agate pendant is created swirling and shaping non-tarnish sterling silver plate wire by hand, adding rose quartz chips, Swarovski crystals and glass chips to enhance the natural beauty and shape of the stone. The unique pattern in this glass-like gemstone creates a deep 3-dimensional effect with a soft pastel blush color.
It measures 1" across and 2 1/2" top to tip including the bail.
The bail is designed to be large enough to accommodate your favorite chain, choker or cord. A 17" silver plate chain is included.
All purchases are nicely packaged in a gift box.
Advertisement for the "Metaphysical Shop" in New Hope, Pennsylvania from a 1990 edition of "En Femme" magazine...
Mandala (Sanskrit Maṇḍala, 'circle') is a spiritual and ritual symbol in Indian religions, representing the universe. The basic form of most mandalas is a square with four gates containing a circle with a center point. Each gate is in the general shape of a T. Mandalas often exhibit radial balance.
The term appears in the Rigveda as the name of the sections of the work, but is also used in other religions and philosophies, particularly Buddhism.
In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing attention of practitioners and adepts, as a spiritual guidance tool, for establishing a sacred space, and as an aid to meditation and trance induction.
In common use, mandala has become a generic term for any diagram, chart or geometric pattern that represents the cosmos metaphysically or symbolically; a microcosm of the universe.
HINDUISM
RELIGIOUS MEANING
A yantra is a two- or three-dimensional geometric composition used in sadhanas, puja or meditative rituals. It is considered to represent the abode of the deity. Each yantra is unique and calls the deity into the presence of the practitioner through the elaborate symbolic geometric designs. According to one scholar, "Yantras function as revelatory symbols of cosmic truths and as instructional charts of the spiritual aspect of human experience"
Many situate yantras as central focus points for Hindu tantric practice. Yantras are not representations, but are lived, experiential, nondual realities. As Khanna describes:
Despite its cosmic meanings a yantra is a reality lived. Because of the relationship that exists in the Tantras between the outer world (the macrocosm) and man’s inner world (the microcosm), every symbol in a yantra is ambivalently resonant in inner–outer synthesis, and is associated with the subtle body and aspects of human consciousness.
POLITICAL MEANING
The "Rajamandala" (or "Raja-mandala"; circle of states) was formulated by the Indian author Kautilya in his work on politics, the Arthashastra (written between 4th century BC and 2nd century AD). It describes circles of friendly and enemy states surrounding the king's state.
In historical, social and political sense, the term "mandala" is also employed to denote traditional Southeast Asian political formations (such as federation of kingdoms or vassalized states). It was adopted by 20th century Western historians from ancient Indian political discourse as a means of avoiding the term 'state' in the conventional sense. Not only did Southeast Asian polities not conform to Chinese and European views of a territorially defined state with fixed borders and a bureaucratic apparatus, but they diverged considerably in the opposite direction: the polity was defined by its centre rather than its boundaries, and it could be composed of numerous other tributary polities without undergoing administrative integration. Empires such as Bagan, Ayutthaya, Champa, Khmer, Srivijaya and Majapahit are known as "mandala" in this sense.
BUDDISM
EARLY AND THERAVADA BUDDHISM
The mandala can be found in the form of the Stupa and in the Atanatiya Sutta in the Digha Nikaya, part of the Pali Canon. This text is frequently chanted.
TIBETAN VAJRAYANA
In the Tibetan branch of Vajrayana Buddhism, mandalas have been developed into sandpainting. They are also a key part of Anuttarayoga Tantra meditation practices.
VISUALISATION OF VAJRAYANA TEACHINGS
The mandala can be shown to represent in visual form the core essence of the Vajrayana teachings. The mind is "a microcosm representing various divine powers at work in the universe." The mandala represents the nature of the Pure Land, Enlightened mind.
While on the one hand, the mandala is regarded as a place separated and protected from the ever-changing and impure outer world of samsara, and is thus seen as a "Buddhafield" or a place of Nirvana and peace, the view of Vajrayana Buddhism sees the greatest protection from samsara being the power to see samsaric confusion as the "shadow" of purity (which then points towards it).
MOUNT MERU
A mandala can also represent the entire universe, which is traditionally depicted with Mount Meru as the axis mundi in the center, surrounded by the continents.
WISDOM AND IMPERMANENCE
In the mandala, the outer circle of fire usually symbolises wisdom. The ring of eight charnel grounds represents the Buddhist exhortation to be always mindful of death, and the impermanence with which samsara is suffused: "such locations were utilized in order to confront and to realize the transient nature of life." Described elsewhere: "within a flaming rainbow nimbus and encircled by a black ring of dorjes, the major outer ring depicts the eight great charnel grounds, to emphasize the dangerous nature of human life." Inside these rings lie the walls of the mandala palace itself, specifically a place populated by deities and Buddhas.
FIVE BUDDHAS
One well-known type of mandala is the mandala of the "Five Buddhas", archetypal Buddha forms embodying various aspects of enlightenment. Such Buddhas are depicted depending on the school of Buddhism, and even the specific purpose of the mandala. A common mandala of this type is that of the Five Wisdom Buddhas (a.k.a. Five Jinas), the Buddhas Vairocana, Aksobhya, Ratnasambhava, Amitabha and Amoghasiddhi. When paired with another mandala depicting the Five Wisdom Kings, this forms the Mandala of the Two Realms.
PRACTICE
Mandalas are commonly used by tantric Buddhists as an aid to meditation.
The mandala is "a support for the meditating person", something to be repeatedly contemplated to the point of saturation, such that the image of the mandala becomes fully internalised in even the minutest detail and can then be summoned and contemplated at will as a clear and vivid visualized image. With every mandala comes what Tucci calls "its associated liturgy [...] contained in texts known as tantras", instructing practitioners on how the mandala should be drawn, built and visualised, and indicating the mantras to be recited during its ritual use.
By visualizing "pure lands", one learns to understand experience itself as pure, and as the abode of enlightenment. The protection that we need, in this view, is from our own minds, as much as from external sources of confusion. In many tantric mandalas, this aspect of separation and protection from the outer samsaric world is depicted by "the four outer circles: the purifying fire of wisdom, the vajra circle, the circle with the eight tombs, the lotus circle." The ring of vajras forms a connected fence-like arrangement running around the perimeter of the outer mandala circle.
As a meditation on impermanence (a central teaching of Buddhism), after days or weeks of creating the intricate pattern of a sand mandala, the sand is brushed together into a pile and spilled into a body of running water to spread the blessings of the mandala.
Kværne in his extended discussion of sahaja, discusses the relationship of sadhana interiority and exteriority in relation to mandala thus:
...external ritual and internal sadhana form an indistinguishable whole, and this unity finds its most pregnant expression in the form of the mandala, the sacred enclosure consisting of concentric squares and circles drawn on the ground and representing that adamant plane of being on which the aspirant to Buddha hood wishes to establish himself. The unfolding of the tantric ritual depends on the mandala; and where a material mandala is not employed, the adept proceeds to construct one mentally in the course of his meditation."
OFFERINGS
A "mandala offering" in Tibetan Buddhism is a symbolic offering of the entire universe. Every intricate detail of these mandalas is fixed in the tradition and has specific symbolic meanings, often on more than one level.
Whereas the above mandala represents the pure surroundings of a Buddha, this mandala represents the universe. This type of mandala is used for the mandala-offerings, during which one symbolically offers the universe to the Buddhas or to one's teacher. Within Vajrayana practice, 100,000 of these mandala offerings (to create merit) can be part of the preliminary practices before a student even begins actual tantric practices. This mandala is generally structured according to the model of the universe as taught in a Buddhist classic text the Abhidharma-kośa, with Mount Meru at the centre, surrounded by the continents, oceans and mountains, etc.
SHINGON BUDDHISM
One Japanese branch of Mahayana Buddhism -- Shingon Buddhism - makes frequent use of mandalas in its rituals as well, though the actual mandalas differ. When Shingon's founder, Kukai, returned from his training in China, he brought back two mandalas that became central to Shingon ritual: the Mandala of the Womb Realm and the Mandala of the Diamond Realm.
These two mandalas are engaged in the abhiseka initiation rituals for new Shingon students, more commonly known as the Kechien Kanjō (結縁灌頂). A common feature of this ritual is to blindfold the new initiate and to have them throw a flower upon either mandala. Where the flower lands assists in the determination of which tutelary deity the initiate should follow.
Sand mandalas, as found in Tibetan Buddhism, are not practiced in Shingon Buddhism.
NICHIREN BUDDHISM
The Mandala in Nichiren Buddhism is called a moji-mandala (文字曼陀羅) and is a paper hanging scroll or wooden tablet whose inscription consists of Chinese characters and medieval-Sanskrit script representing elements of the Buddha's enlightenment, protective Buddhist deities, and certain Buddhist concepts. Called the Gohonzon, it was originally inscribed by Nichiren, the founder of this branch of Japanese Buddhism, during the late 13th Century. The Gohonzon is the primary object of veneration in some Nichiren schools and the only one in others, which consider it to be the supreme object of worship as the embodiment of the supreme Dharma and Nichiren's inner enlightenment. The seven characters Nam Myoho Renge Kyo, considered to be the name of the supreme Dharma, as well as the invocation that believers chant, are written down the center of all Nichiren-sect Gohonzons, whose appearance may otherwise vary depending on the particular school and other factors.
PURE LAND BUDDHISM
Mandalas have sometimes been used in Pure Land Buddhism to graphically represent Pure Lands, based on descriptions found in the Larger Sutra and the Contemplation Sutra. The most famous mandala in Japan is the Taima Mandala, dated to approximately 763 CE. The Taima Mandala is based upon the Contemplation Sutra, but other similar mandalas have been made subsequently. Unlike mandalas used in Vajrayana Buddhism, it is not used as an object of meditation or for esoteric ritual. Instead, it provides a visual representation of the Pure Land texts, and is used as a teaching aid.
Also in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism, Shinran and his descendant, Rennyo, sought a way to create easily accessible objects of reverence for the lower-classes of Japanese society. Shinran designed a mandala using a hanging scroll, and the words of the nembutsu (南無阿彌陀佛) written vertically. This style of mandala is still used by some Jodo Shinshu Buddhists in home altars, or butsudan.
CHRISTIANITY
Forms which are evocative of mandalas are prevalent in Christianity: the celtic cross; the rosary; the halo; the aureole; oculi; the Crown of Thorns; rose windows; the Rosy Cross; and the dromenon on the floor of Chartres Cathedral. The dromenon represents a journey from the outer world to the inner sacred centre where the Divine is found.
Similarly, many of the Illuminations of Hildegard von Bingen can be used as mandalas, as well as many of the images of esoteric Christianity, as in Christian Hermeticism, Christian Alchemy, and Rosicrucianism.
The Layer Monument at the Church of Saint John the Baptist, Maddermarket, Norwich, an early 17th century marble mural monument which includes four inter-related sculpted figurines, is a rare example of Christian iconography absorbing alchemical symbolism to form a Mandala in Western funerary art.
WESTERN PSCHYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATIONS
According to art therapist and mental health counselor Susanne F. Fincher, we owe the re-introduction of mandalas into modern Western thought to Carl Jung, the Swiss psychoanalyst. In his pioneering exploration of the unconscious through his own art making, Jung observed the motif of the circle spontaneously appearing. The circle drawings reflected his inner state at that moment. Familiarity with the philosophical writings of India prompted Jung to adopt the word "mandala" to describe these circle drawings he and his patients made. In his autobiography, Jung wrote:
"I sketched every morning in a notebook a small circular drawing,...which seemed to correspond to my inner situation at the time....Only gradually did I discover what the mandala really is:...the Self, the wholeness of the personality, which if all goes well is harmonious."
—Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, pp. 195 – 196.
Jung recognized that the urge to make mandalas emerges during moments of intense personal growth. Their appearance indicates a profound re-balancing process is underway in the psyche. The result of the process is a more complex and better integrated personality.
"The mandala serves a conservative purpose - namely, to restore a previously existing order. But it also serves the creative purpose of giving expression and form to something that does not yet exist, something new and unique…. The process is that of the ascending spiral, which grows upward while simultaneously returning again and again to the same point."
- Jungian analyst Marie-Louise von Franz, C. G. Jung: "Man and His Symbols," p. 225
Creating mandalas helps stabilize, integrate, and re-order inner life.
According to the psychologist David Fontana, its symbolic nature can help one "to access progressively deeper levels of the unconscious, ultimately assisting the meditator to experience a mystical sense of oneness with the ultimate unity from which the cosmos in all its manifold forms arises."
WIKIPEDIA
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFs8870TN3U
Life’s Shadow
A child cries in ascending spirals;
a mother reprimands. Sounds
hang in space, spin anti-parallel.
Our little clattering lives twine
like polymers. They are all in code,
and the shadows merge, part,
blend, separate, coalesce, split.
We are remembered in guanine,
adenine, thymine, cytosine.
Projected, we loom, approach,
pass by, cross over, dissipate.
We’re all colours and no colour;
We rise, we sink, we fade;
we’re the dance of light and shade:
we dream up God. Our tears
are the first true things he made.
Poem by Giles Watson, 2012.
The picture shows the shadow of a rotating model of a DNA molecule in the University Museum of Natural History, Oxford.
The metaphysics of The Monadology
Contex
The monad, the word and the idea, belongs to the western philosophical tradition and has been used by various authors. Leibniz, who was exceptionally well read, could not have ignored this, but he did not use it himself until mid-1696 when he was sending for print his New System. Apparently he found with it a convenient way to expose his own philosophy as it was elaborated in this period. What he proposed can be seen as a modification of occasionalism developed by latter-day Cartesians. Leibniz surmised that there are indefinitely many substances individually 'programmed' to act in a predetermined way, each substance being coordinated with all the others. This is the pre-established harmony which solved the mind body problem, but at the cost of declaring any interaction between substances a mere appearance.
Summary
The rhetorical strategy adopted by Leibniz in The Monadology is fairly obvious as the text
begins with a description of monads (proceeding from simple to complicated instances),
then it turns to their principle or creator and
finishes by using both to explain the world.
(I) As far as Leibniz allows just one type of element in the building of the universe his system is monistic. The unique element has been 'given the general name monad or entelechy' and described as 'a simple substance' (§§1, 19). When Leibniz says that monads are 'simple,' he means that "which is one, has no parts and is therefore indivisible". Relying on the Greek etymology of the word entelechie (§18), Leibniz posits quantitative differences in perfection between monads which leads to a hierarchical ordering. The basic order is three-tiered: (1) entelechies or created monads (§48),
(2) souls or entelechies with perception and memory (§19), and (3) spirits or rational souls (§82). Whatever is said about the lower ones (entelechies) is valid for the higher (souls and spirits) but not vice versa. As none of them is without a body (§72), there is a corresponding hierarchy of (1) living beings and animals (2), the latter being either (2) non-reasonable or (3) reasonable. The degree of perfection in each case corresponds to cognitive abilities and only spirits or reasonable animals are able to grasp the ideas of both the world and its creator. Some monads have power over others because they can perceive with greater clarity, but primarily, one monad is said to dominate another if it contains the reasons for the actions of other(s). Leibniz believed that any body, such as the body of an animal or man, has one dominant monad which controls the others within it. This dominant monad is often referred to as the soul.
(II) God is also said to be a simple substance (§47) but it is the only one which is necessary (§§38-9) and without a body attached (§72). Monads perceive others “with varying degrees of clarity, except for God, who perceives all monads with utter clarity”. God could take any and all perspectives, knowing of both potentiality and actuality. As well as that God in all his power would know the universe from each of the infinite perspectives at the same time, and so his perspectives—his thoughts—“simply are monads". Creation is a permanent state, thus "[monads] are generated, so to speak, by continual fulgurations of the Divinity" (§47). Any perfection comes from being created while imperfection is a limitation of nature (§42). The monads are unaffected by each other, but they each have a unique way of expressing themselves in the universe, in accordance with God’s infinite will.
(III) Composite substances or matter are "actually sub-divided without end" and have the properties of their infinitesimal parts (§65). A notorious passage (§67) explains that "each portion of matter can be conceived as like a garden full of plants, or like a pond full of fish. But each branch of a plant, each organ of an animal, each drop of its bodily fluids is also a similar garden or a similar pond". There are no interactions between different monads nor between entelechies and their bodies but everything is regulated by the pre-established harmony (§§78-9). Much like how one clock may be in sync with another, but the first clock is not caused by the second (or vice versa), rather they are only keeping the same time because the last person to wind them set them to the same time. So it is with monads; they may seem to cause each other, but rather they are, in a sense, “wound” by God’s pre-established harmony, and thus appear in sync. Leibniz concludes that "if we could understand the order of the universe well enough, we would find that it surpasses all the wishes of the wisest people, and that it is impossible to make it better than it is — not merely in respect of the whole in general, but also in respect of ourselves in particular" (§90).
In his day, atoms were proposed to be the smallest division of matter. Within Liebniz’s theory, however, substances are not technically real, so monads are not the smallest part of matter, rather they are the only things which are, in fact, real. To Leibniz, space and time were an illusion, and likewise substance itself. The only things that could be called real were utterly simple beings of psychic activity “endowed with perception and appetite.” The other objects, which we call matter, are merely phenomena of these simple perceivers. “Leibniz says, ‘I don't really eliminate body, but reduce [revoco] it to what it is. For I show that corporeal mass [massa], which is thought to have something over and above simple substances, is not a substance, but a phenomenon resulting from simple substances, which alone have unity and absolute reality.’ (G II 275/AG 181)” Leibniz’s philosophy is sometimes called “‘panpsychic idealism’ because these substances are psychic rather than material”. That is to say, they are mind-like substances, not possessing spatial reality. "In other words, in the Leibnizian monadology, simple substances are mind-like entities that do not, strictly speaking, exist in space but that represent the universe from a unique perspective.” It is the harmony between the perceptions of the monads which creates what we call substances, but that does not mean the substances are real in and of themselves
Day Two-hundred and Five, it's a Metaphysic Day. Big clouds, heavy rainfalls, hot and shiny sun, this is the end of summer.
365+1 Day of NEX-7 project
Smoke Photo Art.
"Art is magic... But how is it magic? In its metaphysical development? Or does some final transformation culminate in a magic reality? In truth, the latter is impossible without the former. If creation is not magic, the outcome cannot be magic."
Hans Hofmann
I can hardly believe I have made 600 of these smokreations. Although I am not keeping up with the pace of last years 1 a day, as I come up on the end my second year of doing this, I should finish with around 260, which isn't too bad conisdering how much more complex some of these have become.
This one (face and serving dish) has been sitting around on my hard drive for a couple of months. I thought it would be better for the Halloween season. I decided to add the background and water for a little extra punch. Hope people like it and please comment if you do. Thanks to all of you who have supported my work over the past years with your views, comments, and invites. And if you are just discovering my work...dig around in my sets...I think you'll find some magic in there. : )
Alexander Ney (born in Leningrad, Russia) is an American sculptor and painter. He immigrated to the United States in 1974. Developing several individualistic styles in modern art, he is most famous for his unique work in terra cotta sculpture, involving heavily perforated surfaces and intriguing forms.
After being given private art lessons at the home of influential Russian sculptor V.V. Lishev, Ney studied at the Art School of the Leningrad Academy of Arts, and the Art School of the Surikov Moscow Art Institute. Ney befriended a wide number of progressive-minded art students, now stars of the contemporary Russian art scene such as Alexander Kosolapov, Leonid Sokov, Alexander Yulikov, Lev Nussberg and Vadim Kosmatschof. His relentless efforts in creating strikingly new interpretations of art quickly made the young artist legendary amidst his peers. In 1967 through 1969, Ney attended Art History and Theory courses at the Ilya Repin Institute. He continued to perfect his skills as both a painter and sculptor, as well as an art theoretician.
Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature,
but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality
of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
It is not length of life, but depth of life.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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COLLAGE.
PHOTO (for collage)
The Church of Saint John the Baptist. Interier.
Grid (Fragment).
Ein-Kerem (now a part of Jerusalem), Israel.
Taken 02 December,2006
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For more information about my craft, please visit my profile page.
WILD LUPINE is a 140 carat handcrafted Amethyst Crystal Cluster pendant is created swirling and shaping nontarnish sterling silver plate wire by hand to enhance the natural beauty and shape of the stone. This dramatic and sparkly deep violet pendant shimmers with its many druzy points. The combination of the elegant, swirly silver wire setting, together with the natural bling of this dramatic gemstone creates a very versatile piece of wearable art that can be worn with a formal gown or your favorite casual jeans. Stylish Care More pendants are sure to add a touch of natural drama to your fashion wardrobe
It measures 1 1/2" across and 2 1/2" top to tip including the bail.
The bail is designed to be large enough to accommodate your favorite chain, choker or cord. A 17" sterling silver plate chain is included.
All purchases are nicely packaged in a gift box.
The following metaphysical healing properties have been collected from various sources. For more specific information please contact an experienced Crystal Therapist.
Amethyst's healing effects:
Considered the Master Healing Stone. An extremely powerful and protective stone with a high spiritual vibration. It's one of the most spiritual stones, promoting love of the divine, selflessness, & spiritual wisdom. It activates the crown Chakra. It increases a sense of responsibility and self worth. Sleep with it and it facilitates out of body experiences and intuitive dreams. Amethyst aids in headaches, insomnia, blood, pain, stress ,tension, bruising, injuries, skin, respiratory, intestinal. It cleanses the aura. It balances and connects physical, mental & emotional bodies to the spiritual.
* Le Icone e gli Awards dei gruppi, privi di commento personale, saranno rimossi.
* Icons and Awards of groups, without personal comment, will be removed.
Fuji FinePix X100, Fujinon Aspherical 23mm f/2, ISO 400, 1/680s, f/5.6
"A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books."
Walt Whitman
With especial thanks to the programmers of Inkscape, textures by Playing with Brushes, Christopher Lee Hewitt, and Skeletal Mass.
Peace and love to you. Namaste.
[Bibliography]
Peggy Guggenheim's career belongs in the history of 20th century art. Peggy used to say that it was her duty to protect the art of her own time, and she dedicated half of her life to this mission, as well as to the creation of the museum that still carries her name.
Peggy Guggenheim was born in New York on 26 August 1898, the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim and Florette Seligman. Benjamin Guggenheim was one of seven brothers who, with their father, Meyer (of Swiss origin), created a family fortune in the late 19th century from the mining and smelting of metals, especially silver, copper and lead. The Seligmans were a leading banking family. Peggy grew up in New York. In April 1912 her father died heroically on the SS Titanic.
In her early 20s, Peggy volunteered for work at a bookshop, the Sunwise Turn, in New York and thanks to this began making friends in intellectual and artistic circles, including the man who was to become her first husband in Paris in 1922, Laurence Vail. Vail was a writer and Dada collagist of great talent. He chronicled his tempestuous life with Peggy in a novel, Murder! Murder! of which Peggy wrote: "It was a sort of satire of our life together and, although it was extremely funny, I took offense at several things he said about me."
In 1921 Peggy Guggenheim traveled to Europe. Thanks to Laurence Vail (the father of her two children Sindbad and Pegeen, the painter), Peggy soon found herself at the heart of Parisian bohème and American ex-patriate society. Many of her acquaintances of the time, such as Constantin Brancusi, Djuna Barnes and Marcel Duchamp, were to become lifelong friends. Though she remained on good terms with Vail for the rest of his life, she left him in 1928 for an English intellectual, John Holms, who was the greatest love of her life. There is a lengthy description of John Holms, a war hero with writer's block, in chapter five of Edwin Muir's An Autobiography. Muir wrote: "Holms was the most remarkable man I ever met." Unfortunately, Holms died tragically young in 1934.
In 1937, encouraged by her friend Peggy Waldman, Peggy decided to open an art gallery in London. When she opened her Guggenheim Jeune gallery in January 1938, she was beginning, at 39 years old, a career which would significantly affect the course of post-war art. Her friend Samuel Beckett urged her to dedicate herself to contemporary art as it was âa living thing,â and Marcel Duchamp introduced her to the artists and taught her, as she put it, âthe difference between abstract and Surrealist art.â The first show presented works by Jean Cocteau, while the second was the first one-man show of Vasily Kandinsky in England.
In 1939, tired of her gallery, Peggy conceived âthe idea of opening a modern museum in London,â with her friend Herbert Read as its director (2). From the start the museum was to be formed on historical principles, and a list of all the artists that should be represented, drawn up by Read and later revised by Marcel Duchamp and Nellie van Doesburg, was to become the basis of her collection.
In 1939-40, apparently oblivious of the war, Peggy busily acquired works for the future museum, keeping to her resolve to âbuy a picture a day.â Some of the masterpieces of her collection, such as works by Francis Picabia, Georges Braque, Salvador DalÃ- and Piet Mondrian, were bought at that time. She astonished Fernand Léger by buying his Men in the City on the day that Hitler invaded Norway. She acquired Brancusiâs Bird in Space as the Germans approached Paris, and only then decided to flee the city.
In July 1941, Peggy fled Nazi-occupied France and returned to her native New York, together with Max Ernst, who was to become her second husband a few months later (they separated in 1943).
Peggy immediately began looking for a location for her modern art museum, while she continued to acquire works for her collection. In October 1942 she opened her museum/gallery Art of This Century. Designed by the Rumanian-Austrian architect Frederick Kiesler, the gallery was composed of extraordinarily innovative exhibition rooms and soon became the most stimulating venue for contemporary art in New York City.
Of the opening night, she wrote: âI wore one of my Tanguy earrings and one made by Calder in order to show my impartiality between Surrealist and Abstract Art" . There Peggy exhibited her collection of Cubist, abstract and Surrealist art, which was already substantially that which we see today in Venice. Peggy produced a remarkable catalogue, edited by André Breton, with a cover design by Max Ernst. She held temporary exhibitions of leading European artists, and of several then unknown young Americans such as Robert Motherwell, William Baziotes, Mark Rothko, David Hare, Janet Sobel, Robert de Niro Sr, Clyfford Still, and Jackson Pollock, the âstarâ of the gallery, who was given his first show by Peggy late in 1943. From July 1943 Peggy supported Pollock with a monthly stipend and actively promoted and sold his paintings. She commissioned his largest painting, a Mural, which she later gave to the University of Iowa.
Pollock and the others pioneered American Abstract Expressionism. One of the principal sources of this was Surrealism, which the artists encountered at Art of This Century. More important, however, was the encouragement and support that Peggy, together with her friend and assistant Howard Putzel, gave to the members of this nascent New York avant-garde. Peggy and her collection thus played a vital intermediary role in the development of Americaâs first art movement of international importance.
In 1947 Peggy decided to return in Europe, where her collection was shown for the first time at the 1948 Venice Biennale, in the Greek pavilion. In this way the works of artists such as Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko were exhibited for the first time in Europe. The presence of Cubist, abstract, and Surrealist art made the pavilion the most coherent survey of Modernism yet to have been presented in Italy.
Soon after Peggy bought Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, on the Grand Canal in Venice, where she came to live. In 1949 she held an exhibition of sculptures in the garden curated by Giuseppe Marchiori, and from 1951 she opened her collection to the public.
In 1950 Peggy organized the first exhibition of Jackson Pollock in Italy, in the Ala Napoleonica of the Museo Correr in Venice. Her collection was in the meantime exhibited in Florence and Milan, and later in Amsterdam, Brussels, and Zurich. From 1951 Peggy opened her house and her collection to the public annually in the summer months. During her 30-year Venetian life, Peggy Guggenheim continued to collect works of art and to support artists, such as Edmondo Bacci and Tancredi Parmeggiani, whom she met in 1951. In 1962 Peggy Guggenheim was nominated Honorary Citizen of Venice.
In 1969 the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York invited Peggy Guggenheim to show her collection there. In 1976 she donated her palace and works of art to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. The Foundation had been created in 1937 by Peggy Guggenheimâs uncle Solomon, in order to operate his collection and museum which, since 1959, has been housed in Frank Lloyd Wrightâs famous spiral structure on 5th Avenue.
Peggy died aged 81 on 23 December 1979. Her ashes are placed in a corner of the garden of Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, next to the place where she customarily buried her beloved dogs. Since this time, the Guggenheim Foundation has converted and expanded Peggy Guggenheim's private house into one of the finest small museums of modern art in the world.
[Info]
Address
Peggy Guggenheim Collection
Palazzo Venier dei Leoni
Dorsoduro 701
I-30123 Venezia
Opening hours
Daily 10 am - 6 pm
Closed Tuesdays and December 25
General information
tel: +39.041.2405.411
fax: +39.041.520.6885
e-mail: info@guggenheim-venice.it
Visitor services
tel: +39.041.2405.440/419
fax: +39.041.520.9083
e-mail: visitorinfo@guggenheim-venice.it
Photography
Photography is permitted without flash. You may not use tripods or monopods.
Animals
Animals of all sizes are not allowed in the galleries and in the gardens.
For information and assistance please contact "Sporting Dog Club".
Call Tel. +39 347 6242550 (Marie) or +39 347 4161321 (Roberto)
or write to sportingdoginvenice@gmail.com
Venice Art for All
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection joins the Venice Art for All project and becomes accessible to all, including people with limited mobility.
Palazzo Venier dei Leoni was probably begun in the 1750s by architect Lorenzo Boschetti, whose only other known building in Venice is the church of San Barnaba.
It is an unfinished palace. A model exists in the Museo Correr, Venice. Its magnificent classical façade would have matched that of Palazzo Corner, opposite, with the triple arch of the ground floor (which is the explanation of the ivy-covered pillars visible today) extended through both the piani nobili above. We do not know precisely why this Venier palace was left unfinished. Money may have run out, or some say that the powerful Corner family living opposite blocked the completion of a building that would have been grander than their own. Another explanation may rest with the unhappy fate of the next door Gothic palace which was demolished in the early 19th century: structural damage to this was blamed in part on the deep foundations of Palazzo Venier dei Leoni.
Nor is it known how the palace came to be associated with "leoni," lions. Although it is said that a lion was once kept in the garden, the name is more likely to have arisen from the yawning lion's heads of Istrian stone which decorate the façade at water level. The Venier family, who claimed descent from the gens Aurelia of ancient Rome (the Emperor Valerian and Gallienus were from this family), were among the oldest Venetian noble families. Over the centuries they provided eighteen Procurators of St Markâs and three Doges. Antonio Venier (Doge, 1382-1400) had such a strong sense of justice that he allowed his own son to languish and die in prison for his crimes. Francesco Venier (Doge, 1553-56) was the subject of a superb portrait by Titian (Madrid, Fundaciòn Thyssen-Bornemisza). Sebastiano Venier was a commander of the Venetian fleet at the Battle of Lepanto (1571) and later became Doge (1577-78). A lively strutting statue of him, by Antonio dal Zotto (1907), can be seen today in the church of Ss. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice.
From 1910 to c. 1924 the house was owned by the flamboyant Marchesa Luisa Casati, hostess to the Ballets Russes, and the subject of numerous portraits by artists as various as Boldini, Troubetzkoy, Man Ray and Augustus John. In 1949, Peggy Guggenheim purchased Palazzo Venier from the heirs of Viscountes Castlerosse and made it her home for the following thirty years. Early in 1951, Peggy Guggenheim opened her home and collection to the public and continued to do so every year until her death in 1979.
In 1980, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection opened for the first time under the management of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, to which Peggy Guggenheim had given her palazzo and collection during her lifetime.
Palazzo Venier dei Leoni's long low façade, made of Istrian stone and set off against the trees in the garden behind that soften its lines, forms a welcome "caesura" in the stately march of Grand Canal palaces from the Accademia to the Salute.
[Permanent collection]
The core mission of the museum is to present the personal collection of Peggy Guggenheim. The collection holds major works of Cubism, Futurism, Metaphysical painting, European abstraction, avant-garde sculpture, Surrealism, and American Abstract Expressionism, by some of the greatest artists of the 20th century. These include Picasso (The Poet, On the Beach), Braque (The Clarinet), Duchamp (Sad Young Man on a Train), Léger, Brancusi (Maiastra, Bird in Space), Severini (Sea=Dancer), Picabia (Very Rare Picture on Earth), de Chirico (The Red Tower, The Nostalgia of the Poet), Mondrian (Composition No. 1 with Grey and Red 1938 / Composition with Red 1939), Kandinsky (Landscape with Red Spots, No. 2, White Cross), Miro (Seated Woman II), Giacometti Woman with Her Throat Cut, Woman Walking), Klee (Magic Garden), Ernst (The Kiss, Attirement of the Bride), Magritte (Empire of Light), DalÃ- (Birth of Liquid Desires), Pollock (The Moon Woman, Alchemy), Gorky (Untitled), Calder (Arc of Petals) and Marini (Angel of the City).
The museum also exhibits works of art given to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation for its Venetian museum since Peggy Guggenheim's death, as well as long-term loans from private collections.
Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Collection
In October 2012 eighty works of Italian, European and American art of the decades after 1945 were added to the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in Venice. They were the bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, who collected the works with her late husband Rudolph B. Schulhof. They include paintings by Burri, Dubuffet, Fontana, Hofmann, Kelly, Kiefer, Noland, Rothko, and Twombly, as well as sculptures by Calder, Caro, Holzer, Judd and Hepworth. The Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Garden exhibits works from this collection.
Gianni Mattioli Collection
The museum exhibits twenty six masterpieces on long-term loan from the renowned Gianni Mattioli Collection, including famous images of Italian Futurism, such as Materia and Dynamism of a Cyclist by Boccioni, Interventionist Demonstration by Carrà , The Solidity of Fog by Russolo, works by Balla, Severini (Blue Dancer), Sironi, Soffici, Rosai, Depero. The collection includes important early paintings by Morandi and a rare portrait by Modigliani.
Patsy R. and Raymond D. Nasher Sculpture Garden
The Patsy R. and Raymond D. Nasher Sculpture Garden and other outdoor spaces at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection presents works from the permanent collections (by Arp, Duchamp-Villon, Ernst, Flanagan, Giacometti, Gilardi, Goldsworthy, Holzer, Marini, Minguzzi, Mirko, Merz, Moore, Ono, Paladino, Richier, Takis), as well as sculptures on temporary loan from foundations and private collections (by Calder, König , Marini, Nannucci, Smith).
Balthasar de Monconys (1611-1665) was a French physicist and judge, born in Lyon. In 1618, Monconys' parents sent him to a Jesuit boarding school in Salamanca, Spain, as a plague had broken out in Lyon. Monconys was deeply interested in metaphysics and mysticism, and studied the teachings of Pythagoras, Zoroastrism, and Greek and Arab alchemists. From a young age, he dreamed of travelling to India and China. However, he returned to Lyon after finishing his studies. At the age of thirty-four years old he was finally able to leave behind the safety of his library and the theoretical speculation of the laboratory, and become a tireless traveller in Europe and the East.
Monconys travelled to Portugal, England, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Istanbul and the Middle East with the son of the Duke of Luynes. Even in his very first journey to Portugal, it is obvious that in each city Monconys is very soon able to connect with mathematicians, clergymen, surgeons, engineers, chemists, physicians and princes, to visit their laboratories and to collect “secrets and experiences”.
After Portugal, Monconys travelled to Italy, and finally departed to the East, to study the ancient religions and denominations, and meet the gymnosophists. In 1647-48 he was in Egypt. Seeking the Zoroasters and followers of Hermes Trismegistus, he reached Mount Sinai. In Egypt, the 17th century European was lost in a labyrinth of small and winding streetlets, and discovered different cults and religions, the diversity of ethnicities and their customs: Turks, Kopts, Jews, Arabs, Mauritans, Maronites, Armenians, and Dervishes. He followed several superstitious suggestions and discovered marvellous books of astronomy in Hebrew, Persian and Arabic. Later on, after his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, he crossed Asia Minor and reached Istanbul, from where he planned to travel to Persia. For once more in his life however, the plague forced him to change his course; he left for Izmir, and returned to Lyon in 1649.
Fron 1663 to 1665 Monconys travelled incessantly between Paris, London, the Netherlands and Germany. He visited princes and philosophers, libraries and laboratories, and maintained frequent correspondence with several scientists. Finally, after consequent asthma attacks he passed away before his travel notes could be published.
His travel journal (1665-1666) was edited and published by his son and by his Jesuit friend J. Berchet. The journal is enriched by drawings which testify to the wide scope of Monconys' interests. Monconys collected a vast corpus of material which includes medical recipes, chemistry forms, material connected to the esoteric sciences, mathematical puzzles, questions of Algebra and Geometry, zoological observations, mechanical applications, descriptions of natural phenomena, chemistry experiments, various machines and devices, medical matters, the philosopher's stone, astronomical measurements, magnifying lenses, thermometres, hydraulic devices, drinks, hydrometres, microscopes, architectural constructions and even matters connected to hygiene or the preparation of liquors.
The third volume includes a hundred and sixty-five medical, chemical and physics experiments with their outcomes as well as a sonnet on the battle of Marathon. There are five detailed indexes for the classification of the material. At the same time, this three-volume work permits the construction of a list of names (more than two hundred and fifty) of scholars, physicians, alchemists, astrologists, mathematicians, empirical scientists and other researches. From Monconys' text and correspondence a highly interesting network emerges, as it is possible for specialists of all disciplines to reconstruct the contacts between scientists and scholars of Western Europe, for a period spanning more than a decade in the mid-17th century.
Monconys' work is written in a monotonous style, but nevertheless possesses a perennial charm, as it is a combination of a travel journal and a laboratory scientist's workbook. The drawings accompanying the text make up a corpus of material unique in travel literature.
Written by Ioli Vingopoulou
Fransız asıllı fizikçi ve yargıç Balthasar de Monconys (1611-1665) (okunuş: Baltazar dö Monkoni) Lyon şehrinde doğar. Yaşadığı kentte 1618 yılında veba salgını baş gösterince, ailesi onu Salamanka şehrine bir Cizvit yatılı okuluna gönderir. Metafizik ve gizemcilik (mistisizm) için yoğun ilgi duyan Monconys, Pythagoras öğretilerini, Zerdüştlüğü, hatta Yunan ve Arap simyacıların eserlerini okur. Daha küçük yaştan beri Hindistan ve Çin'e kadar ulaşmayı düşlemesine karşın eğitimini tamamladıktan sonra Lyon'a geri döner ve nihayet 34 yaşındayken kütüphane güvenliğini ve teorik laboratuvar bilgilerini terkedip kararlı bir biçimde Avrupa ve Doğu'ya seyahat etmeye başlar.
Monconys, Luynes dükünün oğluyla birlikte Portekiz, İngiltere, Almanya, İtalya, Alçak Ülkeler (Hollanda), İstanbul ve Orta Doğu'ya seyahat eder. Daha ilk yolculuğundan (Portekiz'de) uğradığı her şehirde kısa zamanda matematikçi, rahip, cerrah, mühendis, kimyager, doktor ve prens gibi çeşit çeşit insanlarla bağ kurup laboratuvarlarını ziyaret ederek "sır ve tecrübeler" derler. Yazdığı metinde bu süreci izlemekteyiz. Portekiz'den sonra ilk kez olarak İtalya'ya gider ve nihayet çeşitli dogmaları, eski dinleri ve "gymnosophist"leri (çıplak bilgeler) incelemek üzere Doğu'ya doğru yola çıkar. 1647-48 yıllarında Mısır'da bulunmaktadır; Zerdüştçüler ve Hermes-Thot (Hermes Trismegistus) müritleriyle karşılaşmak için Sina dağına kadar ulaşır. Mısır'da 17. yüzyılın bu Batı Avrupalısı daracık sokakların oluşturduğu labirent içinde yitip, türk, kıptî, yahudî, arap, moritanyalı, maruni, ermeni, derviş gibi binbir çeşit dogma ve mezhep, milliyet ve kültürel adet keşfeder. Batıl inançlara uyar, ibranice farsça yada arapça dillerinde yazılmış şahane gökbilim kitapları keşfeder. Kutsal Yerlere hacılık ziyaretinin ardından Anadolu'yu boydan boya geçip İstanbul'a varır. Buradan İran'a gitmeyi planlar. Ancak veba salgını bir kez daha onu kaçmaya zorlar; İzmir'e geçip oradan 1649 yılında Lyon'a döner.
Monconys 1663'ten 1665'e kadar hiç ara vermeden Paris, Londra, Hollanda ve Almanya arasında mekik dokuyup prens ve filozoflarla konuşur, çeşitli kütüphane ve laboratuvarları ziyaret eder ve birçok bilim adamıyla yoğun bir mektuplaşma sürdürür. Ancak sonunda üstüste geçirdiği astım krizlerinden sonra seyahat notlarının kitap olarak basılmış halini göremeden ölür.
Sözkonusu yayın (1665-1666) Monconys'nin oğlu ve dostu Cizvit rahip J. Berchet tarafından hazırlanmıştır. Monconys'nin geniş bir ilgi alanına sahip oluşu günlüğünü tamamlayan desenlerle kanıtlanmaktadır. Derlemiş olduğu çeşitli ve zengin malzeme içinde: ilâç reçeteleri, kimyasal formüller, gizli ilimlerle ilgili malzeme, matematik bilmeceleri, cebir ve geometri problemleri, zoolojiye (hayvan bilimi) ilişkin gözlemler, mekanik uygulamalar, doğa fenomenleri betimlemeleri, kimyasal deneyler, makineler, tıp konuları, felsefe taşı, astronomi ölçümleri, büyüteçler, termometreler, su tesisatıyla ilgili cihazlar, içkiler, hidrometreler, mikroskoplar, mimarî yapılar, hijyen ve likör yapımı gibi konular var.
Kitabın üçüncü cildinde işlenen konular arasında 165 tane fizik kimya ve tıp deneyi ve sonuçları, ve Maraton muharebesi hakkında bir sone yer almaktadır. Bu içeriğin sınıflanması için kitaba beş tane ayrı çözümlemeli dizin eklenmiştir. Aynı zamanda, Monconys'nin üç ciltlik eserinden upuzun bir isimler katalogu da (250'den fazla isim) elde edilebilir. Bu isimler yazar ve düşünür, doktor, simyacı, astrolog, matematikçi, deneyci ve çeşitli uzman araştırmacılara aittir. Monconys'nin metninden ve mektuplaşmalarından, 17. yüzyıl ortalarında özellikle batı Avrupa'da, 20 yıldan fazla bir süre için, tüm bilim uzmanlarının yeniden birleştirebileceği son derece ilginç bir bilimler arası ilişki ağı ortaya çıkmaktadır.
Monconys'nin yazış uslubu tekdüze olmakla birlikte, bir laboratuvar araştırmacısının seyahat günlüğü ile gözlem defterini bir arada bulundurması açısından eşsiz bir cazibeye sahiptir. Metne eşlik eden desenler seyahat edebiyatı yayınlarında rastlanan ender türden bir malzeme oluşturmaktadır.
Yazan: İoli Vingopoulou
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection;
[Bibliography]
Peggy Guggenheim's career belongs in the history of 20th century art. Peggy used to say that it was her duty to protect the art of her own time, and she dedicated half of her life to this mission, as well as to the creation of the museum that still carries her name.
Peggy Guggenheim was born in New York on 26 August 1898, the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim and Florette Seligman. Benjamin Guggenheim was one of seven brothers who, with their father, Meyer (of Swiss origin), created a family fortune in the late 19th century from the mining and smelting of metals, especially silver, copper and lead. The Seligmans were a leading banking family. Peggy grew up in New York. In April 1912 her father died heroically on the SS Titanic. (1)
In her early 20s, Peggy volunteered for work at a bookshop, the Sunwise Turn, in New York and thanks to this began making friends in intellectual and artistic circles, including the man who was to become her first husband in Paris in 1922, Laurence Vail. Vail was a writer and Dada collagist of great talent. He chronicled his tempestuous life with Peggy in a novel, Murder! Murder! of which Peggy wrote: "It was a sort of satire of our life together and, although it was extremely funny, I took offense at several things he said about me."
In 1921 Peggy Guggenheim traveled to Europe. Thanks to Laurence Vail (the father of her two children Sindbad and Pegeen, the painter), Peggy soon found herself at the heart of Parisian bohème and American ex-patriate society. Many of her acquaintances of the time, such as Constantin Brancusi, Djuna Barnes and Marcel Duchamp, were to become lifelong friends. Though she remained on good terms with Vail for the rest of his life, she left him in 1928 for an English intellectual, John Holms, who was the greatest love of her life. There is a lengthy description of John Holms, a war hero with writer's block, in chapter five of Edwin Muir's An Autobiography. Muir wrote: "Holms was the most remarkable man I ever met." Unfortunately, Holms died tragically young in 1934.
In 1937, encouraged by her friend Peggy Waldman, Peggy decided to open an art gallery in London. When she opened her Guggenheim Jeune gallery in January 1938, she was beginning, at 39 years old, a career which would significantly affect the course of post-war art. Her friend Samuel Beckett urged her to dedicate herself to contemporary art as it was âa living thing,â and Marcel Duchamp introduced her to the artists and taught her, as she put it, âthe difference between abstract and Surrealist art.â The first show presented works by Jean Cocteau, while the second was the first one-man show of Vasily Kandinsky in England.
In 1939, tired of her gallery, Peggy conceived âthe idea of opening a modern museum in London,â with her friend Herbert Read as its director (2). From the start the museum was to be formed on historical principles, and a list of all the artists that should be represented, drawn up by Read and later revised by Marcel Duchamp and Nellie van Doesburg, was to become the basis of her collection.
In 1939-40, apparently oblivious of the war, Peggy busily acquired works for the future museum, keeping to her resolve to âbuy a picture a day.â Some of the masterpieces of her collection, such as works by Francis Picabia, Georges Braque, Salvador DalÃ- and Piet Mondrian, were bought at that time. She astonished Fernand Léger by buying his Men in the City on the day that Hitler invaded Norway. She acquired Brancusiâs Bird in Space as the Germans approached Paris, and only then decided to flee the city.
In July 1941, Peggy fled Nazi-occupied France and returned to her native New York, together with Max Ernst, who was to become her second husband a few months later (they separated in 1943).
Peggy immediately began looking for a location for her modern art museum, while she continued to acquire works for her collection. In October 1942 she opened her museum/gallery Art of This Century. Designed by the Rumanian-Austrian architect Frederick Kiesler, the gallery was composed of extraordinarily innovative exhibition rooms and soon became the most stimulating venue for contemporary art in New York City. (3)
Of the opening night, she wrote: âI wore one of my Tanguy earrings and one made by Calder in order to show my impartiality between Surrealist and Abstract Art" (4). There Peggy exhibited her collection of Cubist, abstract and Surrealist art, which was already substantially that which we see today in Venice. Peggy produced a remarkable catalogue, edited by André Breton, with a cover design by Max Ernst. She held temporary exhibitions of leading European artists, and of several then unknown young Americans such as Robert Motherwell, William Baziotes, Mark Rothko, David Hare, Janet Sobel, Robert de Niro Sr, Clyfford Still, and Jackson Pollock, the âstarâ of the gallery, who was given his first show by Peggy late in 1943. From July 1943 Peggy supported Pollock with a monthly stipend and actively promoted and sold his paintings. She commissioned his largest painting, a Mural, which she later gave to the University of Iowa.
Pollock and the others pioneered American Abstract Expressionism. One of the principal sources of this was Surrealism, which the artists encountered at Art of This Century. More important, however, was the encouragement and support that Peggy, together with her friend and assistant Howard Putzel, gave to the members of this nascent New York avant-garde. Peggy and her collection thus played a vital intermediary role in the development of Americaâs first art movement of international importance.
In 1947 Peggy decided to return in Europe, where her collection was shown for the first time at the 1948 Venice Biennale, in the Greek pavilion (5). In this way the works of artists such as Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko were exhibited for the first time in Europe. The presence of Cubist, abstract, and Surrealist art made the pavilion the most coherent survey of Modernism yet to have been presented in Italy.
Soon after Peggy bought Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, on the Grand Canal in Venice, where she came to live. In 1949 she held an exhibition of sculptures in the garden (6) curated by Giuseppe Marchiori, and from 1951 she opened her collection to the public.
In 1950 Peggy organized the first exhibition of Jackson Pollock in Italy, in the Ala Napoleonica of the Museo Correr in Venice. Her collection was in the meantime exhibited in Florence and Milan, and later in Amsterdam, Brussels, and Zurich. From 1951 Peggy opened her house and her collection to the public annually in the summer months. During her 30-year Venetian life, Peggy Guggenheim continued to collect works of art and to support artists, such as Edmondo Bacci and Tancredi Parmeggiani, whom she met in 1951. In 1962 Peggy Guggenheim was nominated Honorary Citizen of Venice.
In 1969 the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York invited Peggy Guggenheim to show her collection there. In 1976 she donated her palace and works of art to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. The Foundation had been created in 1937 by Peggy Guggenheimâs uncle Solomon, in order to operate his collection and museum which, since 1959, has been housed in Frank Lloyd Wrightâs famous spiral structure on 5th Avenue.
Peggy died aged 81 on 23 December 1979. Her ashes are placed in a corner of the garden of Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, next to the place where she customarily buried her beloved dogs. Since this time, the Guggenheim Foundation has converted and expanded Peggy Guggenheim's private house into one of the finest small museums of modern art in the world.
[Info]
Address
Peggy Guggenheim Collection
Palazzo Venier dei Leoni
Dorsoduro 701
I-30123 Venezia
Opening hours
Daily 10 am - 6 pm
Closed Tuesdays and December 25
General information
tel: +39.041.2405.411
fax: +39.041.520.6885
e-mail: info@guggenheim-venice.it
Visitor services
tel: +39.041.2405.440/419
fax: +39.041.520.9083
e-mail: visitorinfo@guggenheim-venice.it
Photography
Photography is permitted without flash. You may not use tripods or monopods.
Animals
Animals of all sizes are not allowed in the galleries and in the gardens.
For information and assistance please contact "Sporting Dog Club".
Call Tel. +39 347 6242550 (Marie) or +39 347 4161321 (Roberto)
or write to sportingdoginvenice@gmail.com
Venice Art for All
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection joins the Venice Art for All project and becomes accessible to all, including people with limited mobility.
Palazzo Venier dei Leoni was probably begun in the 1750s by architect Lorenzo Boschetti, whose only other known building in Venice is the church of San Barnaba.
It is an unfinished palace. A model exists in the Museo Correr, Venice (1). Its magnificent classical façade would have matched that of Palazzo Corner, opposite, with the triple arch of the ground floor (which is the explanation of the ivy-covered pillars visible today) extended through both the piani nobili above. We do not know precisely why this Venier palace was left unfinished. Money may have run out, or some say that the powerful Corner family living opposite blocked the completion of a building that would have been grander than their own. Another explanation may rest with the unhappy fate of the next door Gothic palace which was demolished in the early 19th century: structural damage to this was blamed in part on the deep foundations of Palazzo Venier dei Leoni.
Nor is it known how the palace came to be associated with "leoni," lions. Although it is said that a lion was once kept in the garden, the name is more likely to have arisen from the yawning lion's heads of Istrian stone which decorate the façade at water level (2). The Venier family, who claimed descent from the gens Aurelia of ancient Rome (the Emperor Valerian and Gallienus were from this family), were among the oldest Venetian noble families. Over the centuries they provided eighteen Procurators of St Markâs and three Doges. Antonio Venier (Doge, 1382-1400) had such a strong sense of justice that he allowed his own son to languish and die in prison for his crimes. Francesco Venier (Doge, 1553-56) was the subject of a superb portrait by Titian (Madrid, Fundaciòn Thyssen-Bornemisza). Sebastiano Venier was a commander of the Venetian fleet at the Battle of Lepanto (1571) and later became Doge (1577-78). A lively strutting statue of him, by Antonio dal Zotto (1907), can be seen today in the church of Ss. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice.
From 1910 to c. 1924 the house was owned by the flamboyant Marchesa Luisa Casati, hostess to the Ballets Russes, and the subject of numerous portraits by artists as various as Boldini, Troubetzkoy, Man Ray and Augustus John. In 1949, Peggy Guggenheim purchased Palazzo Venier from the heirs of Viscountes Castlerosse and made it her home for the following thirty years. Early in 1951, Peggy Guggenheim opened her home and collection to the public and continued to do so every year until her death in 1979. (3) (4)
In 1980, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection opened for the first time under the management of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, to which Peggy Guggenheim had given her palazzo and collection during her lifetime.
Palazzo Venier dei Leoni's long low façade, made of Istrian stone and set off against the trees in the garden behind that soften its lines, forms a welcome "caesura" in the stately march of Grand Canal palaces from the Accademia to the Salute.
[Permanent collection]
The core mission of the museum is to present the personal collection of Peggy Guggenheim. The collection holds major works of Cubism, Futurism, Metaphysical painting, European abstraction, avant-garde sculpture, Surrealism, and American Abstract Expressionism, by some of the greatest artists of the 20th century. These include Picasso (The Poet, On the Beach), Braque (The Clarinet), Duchamp (Sad Young Man on a Train), Léger, Brancusi (Maiastra, Bird in Space), Severini (Sea=Dancer), Picabia (Very Rare Picture on Earth), de Chirico (The Red Tower, The Nostalgia of the Poet), Mondrian (Composition No. 1 with Grey and Red 1938 / Composition with Red 1939), Kandinsky (Landscape with Red Spots, No. 2, White Cross), Miró (Seated Woman II), Giacometti Woman with Her Throat Cut, Woman Walking), Klee (Magic Garden), Ernst (The Kiss, Attirement of the Bride), Magritte (Empire of Light), DalÃ- (Birth of Liquid Desires), Pollock (The Moon Woman, Alchemy), Gorky (Untitled), Calder (Arc of Petals) and Marini (Angel of the City).
The museum also exhibits works of art given to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation for its Venetian museum since Peggy Guggenheim's death, as well as long-term loans from private collections.
Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Collection
In October 2012 eighty works of Italian, European and American art of the decades after 1945 were added to the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in Venice. They were the bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, who collected the works with her late husband Rudolph B. Schulhof. They include paintings by Burri, Dubuffet, Fontana, Hofmann, Kelly, Kiefer, Noland, Rothko, and Twombly, as well as sculptures by Calder, Caro, Holzer, Judd and Hepworth. The Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Garden exhibits works from this collection.
Gianni Mattioli Collection
The museum exhibits twenty six masterpieces on long-term loan from the renowned Gianni Mattioli Collection, including famous images of Italian Futurism, such as Materia and Dynamism of a Cyclist by Boccioni, Interventionist Demonstration by Carrà , The Solidity of Fog by Russolo, works by Balla, Severini (Blue Dancer), Sironi, Soffici, Rosai, Depero. The collection includes important early paintings by Morandi and a rare portrait by Modigliani.
Patsy R. and Raymond D. Nasher Sculpture Garden
The Patsy R. and Raymond D. Nasher Sculpture Garden and other outdoor spaces at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection presents works from the permanent collections (by Arp, Duchamp-Villon, Ernst, Flanagan, Giacometti, Gilardi, Goldsworthy, Holzer, Marini, Minguzzi, Mirko, Merz, Moore, Ono, Paladino, Richier, Takis), as well as sculptures on temporary loan from foundations and private collections (by Calder, König , Marini, Nannucci, Smith).