View allAll Photos Tagged monitoring
These Aspen were not completely ravaged by fire, and so are a beacon of autumn color at the base of the pass to the eastern sierra.
A lovely encounter with a monitor lizard on the banks of the river in Gorongosa.
#wildcamp #gorongosa #gorongosanationalpark #M#wildcamp #gorongosa #gorongosanationalpark #M#gorongosaozambique
#monitorlizard #reptilesofinstagram
#endangeredspecies #wildography #wildlifepics #wildgeography #africanamazing #natgeoafrica #instaafrica #africansafari #africanwildlife #amazingafrica #wildlifeconservation #pictussafaris
MWMO Monitoring and Instrumentation Specialist Brian Jastram (left) and Water Resources Director Udai Singh inspect water quality monitoring equipment in a stormtunnel near downtown Minneapolis.
The Asian water monitor (Varanus salvator), also called common water monitor, is a large varanid lizard native to South and Southeast Asia. It is one of the most common monitor lizards in Asia, ranging from Sri Lanka and coastal northeast India to Indochina, Malay Peninsula, and Indonesian islands where it lives close to water. It is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. The Asian water monitor is also called Malayan water monitor, common water monitor, two-banded monitor, rice lizard, ring lizard, plain lizard and no-mark lizard, as well as simply water monitor. The local name in Sri Lanka is kabaragoya, denoting a subspecies with distinct morphological features. The Asian water monitor is widely distributed from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, the Chinese Guangxi and Hainan provinces, Malaysia, Singapore to the Sunda islands Sumatra, Java, Bali, Borneo and Sulawesi. It inhabits primarily lowland freshwater and brackish wetlands. It has been recorded up to an altitude of 1,800 m. Asian water monitors are semiaquatic and opportunistic; they inhabit a variety of natural habitats though predominantly this species resides in primary forests and mangrove swamps. It has been noted that these monitors are not deterred from living in areas of human disturbance. In fact, they have been known to adapt and thrive in agricultural areas as well as cities with canal systems (such as in Sri Lanka, where they are not hunted or persecuted by humans). This species does not thrive in habitats with extensive loss of natural vegetation and aquatic resources. Habitats that are considered to be most important to this species are mangrove vegetation, swamps, wetlands, and altitudes below 1000 meters. 16135
In the heart of Bangkok, You will see such signs in parks. Don’t be alarmed, Monitors are shy creatures.
Back to the Dockyard now! This is a shot of HMS Monitor in her dock, with HMS Victory and one of the buildings I worked in in the background.
Info below!
HMS M33 is an M29-class monitor of the Royal Navy built in 1915. She saw active service in the Mediterranean during the First World War and in Russia during the Allied Intervention in 1919. She was used subsequently as a mine-laying training ship, fuelling hulk, boom defence workshop and floating office, being renamed HMS Minerva and Hulk C23 during her long life. She passed to Hampshire County Council in the 1980s and was restored to original condition and is now located at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. She is one of only three surviving Royal Navy warships of the First World War and the only surviving ship from the Gallipoli Campaign.
Class 52 1063 Western Monitor stand in the sunlight at Westbury depot note the dents and scrapes on the bodyside of the loco,if you look at my Western pictures many of them have dents and scrapes and several have welded patches on their front ends !!. 06/06/1974.
image Kevin Connolly - All rights reserved so please do no use this without my explicit permission
The USS Monitor was the revolutionary all iron design with the world's first nautical rotating gun turret. It was designed by John Ericsson and financed and promoted to the Navy by Madison's Cornelius Scranton Bushnell. When the Union learned that the Confederates were building an iron clad ship to fight against Federal blockades of Southern ports, it quickly countered with the Monitor. See www.madisonhistory.org/uss-monitor/ for the whole story. The Monitor's most notable engagement was against the CSS Virginia (a.k.a USS Merrimack) during America's Civil War at Hampton Roads, Va. in March of 1862.
This is a large (1/4"=1' scale) museum-quality wooden model of the USS Monitor in its battle-ready appearance. The model was built in the early 1970's by Arthur G. Henning, Inc, 17 South 3rd Ave., Mount Vernon, NY 10550, to exact measurements from archival blueprints. It is a duplicate of the model ship on display at the Smithsonian, which the Henning firm also produced. According to the firm, ours has more detail inside the turret. The ship model includes an anchor and the Ericsson-designed propellor. Painted flat black with red-lead colored hull. The ship model is 43 1/2" long X 10 3/4" wide X 6 1/2" high. It was commissioned by Dr. Philip S. Platt, a previous MHS President, in 1974 for $1,200. It was donated by him to be part of the 1974 MHS exhibit about Cornelius Bushnell and the Monitor.
ACC# 1974.016.002
See other USS Monitor-related images at flic.kr/s/aHBqjzRDR2. (Photo credit - Bob Gundersen www.flickr.com/photos/bobphoto51/albums)
Impressions of India – 39
Monitor lizard spotted in Keoladeo National Park, a Bird Sanctuary in Bharatpur, in the Indian state of Rajasthan.
The monitor lizards are large lizards in the genus Varanus. They are native to Africa, Asia and Oceania, but are now found also in the Americas as an invasive species. A total of 79 species are currently recognized.
Monitor lizards have long necks, powerful tails and claws, and well-developed limbs. The adult length of extant species ranges from 20 cm (7.9 in) in some species, to over 3 m (10 ft) in the case of the Komodo dragon, though the extinct varanid known as megalania (Varanus priscus) may have been capable of reaching lengths of more than 7 m (23 ft). Most monitor species are terrestrial, but arboreal and semiaquatic monitors are also known. While most monitor lizards are carnivorous, eating eggs, smaller reptiles, fish, birds and small mammals, some also eat fruit and vegetation, depending on where they live.
If you like this picture from my India trip, you can see more at www.flickr.com/photos/chizuka/albums/72157673735932443
❖ Thank you as always for your visits, appreciation and your comments
❖ Merci comme toujours de vos visites, vos appréciations et vos commentaires.
❖ You can also see my work on 500PX,
This ridge forms a tail on the southeast end of Monitor Butte and looks away from the butte itself.
Seen during a hike from SR 313 in Sevenmile Canyon to Monitor and Merrimac buttes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
© All Rights Reserved by Rifat Iqbal.
Please don't use this image anywhere without my explicit permission.Please do contact me if you wish to use any of my images.
Thank You for watching my Photograph.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Monitor Memorial
sculptor: Antonio De Filippo, 1938
dedicated: November 6, 1938
Monsignor McGolrick Park
Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York City, New York
inscription:
ERECTED BY THE PEOPLE OF THE / STATE OF NEW YORK / TO COMMEMORATE THE BATTLE OF THE / MONITOR AND MERRIMAC / MARCH 9TH, 1862 / AND IN MEMORY / OF THE MEN OF THE MONITOR / AND ITS DESIGNER - JOHN ERICSSON
[These are the last three of my series on the abbey church of Pontigny.
Tomorrow I am leaving for two weeks to spend the holidays with family in the UK, then in Normandy. Therefore, there will be no more uploads from me until January 6 or 7. I will however keep monitoring my Flickr groups as I always do when away.
I thank all of you who follow my stream for your visits and the comments you left during this year 2024 that’s coming to an end, and I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! See you in 2025!]
A few days ago, at the beginning of December 2024, celebrations televised worldwide heralded the coming back to life of the Notre–Dame Cathedral in Paris, after the accidental and disastrous timber roof fire of April 2019. This joyous occasion was an opportunity to vaunt the vastness of the cathedral.
Well, today and over the following days, I invite you to discover a much-less known, but much more surprising, church, the abbey church of Pontigny, in the equally little known département of Yonne (a part of Burgundy), about 150 kilometers southeast of Paris. There, at the edge of a small village and framed by the tall trees of a dark forest, an enormous vessel of stone stands in the middle of wheat fields, towering above everything else, even though it doesn’t have towers nor spire...
It has two things in common with the cathedral of Paris: at 120 meters, the length of its nave almost that of Notre–Dame (130 meters), and in addition to being an abbey church, Pontigny is also a cathedral... It is also the oldest, as when the first stone of Notre–Dame was laid in 1163, Pontigny was already built.
The abbey of Pontigny was founded in 1114 by a group of monks led by Hugues of Mâcon. For the second time after the foundation of La Ferté the year before, monks of the Cîteaux Abbey left the mothership to found a new monastery. Pontigny thus became and will forever remain “the second daughter of Cîteaux”, an important claim in an order than will number more than 2,200 monasteries of monks and nuns.
Donations flow in. Counting more than a dozen Kings of France among its benefactors, not to mention a good half-dozen Kings of England, the abbey will also give refuge to three archbishops of Canterbury, two of them saints: Thomas Becket and Edme (or Edmund) of Abingdon, whose relics are still buried in the choir of the church.
Built largely thanks to generous funding by Thibaut the Great, Earl of Champagne whose daughter Adele will marry King Louis VII, the church we can still admire today is built between 1138 and around 1150, although additions will be made to it as late as the early 1200s. It is mostly Romanesque, but the influence of the Gothic style can be seen in the latest rows of the nave, and of course in the ceiling, which is rib-vaulted —the first time this architecture was ever used in Burgundy.
During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the abbey will be one of the richest and most powerful of the Western world, counting more than forty priories, vast lands and assorted properties in many different cities. Its library was also famous.
Listed as a Monument historique (Historic Landmark) on the very first list drawn up in 1840 by Minister Prosper Mérimée, the abbey church is almost all that’s left of the abbey, which was severely damaged during the Hundred Years War, then during the Wars of Religion, and finally during the French Revolution.
Since 1954, the abbey church is also the legal seat and headquarters of the “Mission de France” territorial prelature, which inspired the so-called “worker priests” which are quite well known in France. For that reason, the abbey church was granted by the Pope the status of cathedral of that prelature.
I’ve had the pleasure to visit this grandiose church, the largest ever in the Cistercian order, in late May 2024, within the scope of a photographic mission for the Fondation pour La Sauvegarde de l’Art Français, one of the not-for-profit organizations I work for as a pro bono photographer. I was given access to what’s left of the cloister, a part which is normally off-limits.
The overwhelming apse of the abbey church dominates the parish cemetery. Here you can see those flying buttresses I mentioned in an earlier caption. They were added during the early Gothic period to support the top part of the nave.
I doubt this “support” was really necessary. Sometimes “modern” features were added just to look up to date, “hip” if I dare say... :o)
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!
R-12: Our Space Station Commander Max Suraev while monitoring the approach of unmanned space ship Progress 57P.
Credits: ESA/NASA
129A0467
Bangkok, Thailand
This lizard is a little over five feet (1.5mtr) long, about
average for an adult (but we did see some well over 6 1/2 feet). The first time I saw one in Thailand I was really excited, so eager to get a decent photo -- I thought we might have found something really special. It didn't take long to figure out that they're pretty much everywhere in Thailand. We saw them in many lakes, rivers, ponds, canals, just about every body of water that we spent any time observing. This guy was in a little flooded, muddy ornamental pond outside a large hospital on a very busy main road.
Very cool animals and obviously very adaptive. Surprisingly fast runners and very graceful swimmers. They're carnivorous, often dining on on the remains of unfortunate animals or discarded scraps of meat, and they also pursue live prey. We saw a few leave the water with still-flopping fish, and I saw one near this location (maybe the same individual) make a quick grab for an inattentive pigeon. He only managed to a mouthful of feathers, and the pigeon left the area with great haste.
These lizards are usually pretty skittish, not too easy to approach very closely. I watched this one slide from the grass bank down to the edge of the pond, then sat down and waited just in case he came back up. He did crawl back up, and I guess he didn't see me until I clicked the shutter. This is a nearly uncropped shot, (but at 300mm, so I wasn't too close).
Permanent noise monitors, strategically placed throughout the community, are designed to capture noise events associated with Centennial Airport traffic. (CENTENNIAL AIRPORT PHOTO BY Deborah Grigsby Smith)
Perceptum never took to monitors as eagerly as the Vinlanders (who had invented the ship type as a substitute for ocean-going battleships), at least not during the Imperial era. The Marina Imperiale (Imperial Navy) exercised a budget big enough to maintain an enormous trans-oceanic Battlefleet that could respond to crises and strategic threats anywhere in the world. Modern Perceptum, with its much reduced navy and economic base, didn’t have that luxury.
The Grande Marina (Grand Navy) operated a much smaller Battlefleet, and thus turned to the monitor as a cheap method of providing big guns to the defense of its colonial possessions. Those built in the 1880’s were ugly, flawed but powerfully armed gun platforms. Those, like the Pugilist class, that were built during and after the Great Re-Armament were armed with smaller, cruiser-sized guns but were better able to traverse treacherous and shallow waters. More importantly, they had larger secondary batteries and were maneuverable enough to tango with torpedo armed ships that would have easily sunk preceding classes of Perceptan monitors.
But unlike their predecessors, the Pugilists were largely incapable of traversing the open ocean safely, limiting them to riverine and coastal operations.
-
Rock Monitor, Varanus albigularis, Likkewaan. This lizard, also called White-throated monitor or Leguaan, commonly roams rocky, semi-desert areas, can grow up to 2m in length and is found widely spread in Southern Africa. Photographed in the wild near Beaufort West in South Africa's Karoo region.
© All rights reserved. This and all other photographs on this photostream are protected by copyright. This photograph may not be used by anyone, on any site, blog or forum, nor linked to without our written permission.
"the artists of the "Casa del Musical" group (House of Musical)".
“gli artisti del gruppo "Casa del Musical".
-----------------------------------------------------------------
click to activate the icon of slideshow: the small triangle inscribed in the small rectangle, at the top right, in the photostream;
or…. Press the “L” button to zoom in the image;
clicca sulla piccola icona per attivare lo slideshow: sulla facciata principale del photostream, in alto a destra c'è un piccolo rettangolo (rappresenta il monitor) con dentro un piccolo triangolo nero;
oppure…. premi il tasto “L” per ingrandire l'immagine;
www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...
www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...
……………………………………………………………………….
A history of Taormina: chronicles of a forbidden love and its great secret (not only Paolo and Francesca) with an unexpected "scoop".
This story is an integral part of the story previously told, the historical period is the same, the place is the same, the various characters often meet each other because they know each other; Taormina, between the end of the 1800s and the beginning of the 1900s, in an ever increasing growth, became the place of residence of elite tourism, thanks to the international interest aroused by writers and artists, such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , or great personalities like Lady Florence Trevelyan: Taormina becomes so famous, thanks to the paintings of the painter Otto Geleng and the photographs of the young Sicilian models by Wilhelm von Gloeden; in the air of Taormina there is a sense of libertine, its famous and histrionic visitors never fail to create scandal, even surpassing the famous Capri, in which, to cite just one example, the German gunsmith Krupp, trying to recreate the he environment of Arcadia that one breathed in Taormina (thanks to the photos of von Gloeden) was overwhelmed by the scandal for homosexuality, and took his own life. Taormina thus becomes a heavenly-like place, far from industrial civilizations, where you can freely live your life and sexuality; this is the socio-cultural environment in which the two protagonists of this story move, the British painter Robert Hawthorn Kitson (1873 - 1947) and the painter Carlo Siligato (born in Taormina in 1875, and died there in 1959). Robert H. Kitson, born in Leeds in England, belonged to a more than wealthy family, as a young engineer he had begun to replace his father in the family locomotive construction company (Kitson & Co.), on the death of his father in 1899 sells everything and decides to move very rich in Sicily to Taormina (he had been there the previous year with a trip made with his parents, here he had met, in addition to Baron von Gloeden, also the writer and poet Oscar Wilde who came to Italy, immediately after having served two years in prison in forced labor, on charges of sodomy); Kitson settled there because he was suffering from a severe form of rheumatic fever (like von Gloeden was advised to treat himself in the Mediterranean climate milder), and because as a homosexual, he leaves England because the Labouchere amendment considered homosexuality a crime. The other protagonist of this story is Carlo Siligato, he was from Taormina, he had attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, a very gifted painter, he was very good at oil painting (he exhibited his paintings in an art workshop, even now existing, in via Teatro Greco in Taormina), the meeting with the painter Robert Kitson, led him to adopt the watercolor technique: almost to relive Dante's verses on Paolo and Francesca "Galeotto was the book and who wrote it" the common passion for painting led the two artists to live an intense love story. Kitson built his home in the "Cuseni" district of Taormina, called for this "Casa Cuseni", the house was built between 1900 and 1905, its decorations were entrusted to the artists Alfred East (realist landscape painter, president of the Royal Society ), and Frank Brangwyn (painter, decorator, designer), he was a pupil of William Morris, leader of the English movement "Arts and Crafts" which spread to England in the second half of the nineteenth century (the Arts and Crafts was a response to the industrialization of Europe, of mass production operated by factories, all this at the expense of traditional craftsmanship, from this movement originated the Art Nouveau, in Italy also known as Liberty Style or Floral Style, which distinguished itself for having been a artistic and philosophical movement, which developed between the end of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century, whose style spread in such a way as to be present everywhere). Casa Cuseni has kept a secret for 100 years that goes far beyond the forbidden love lived by Robert and Carlo, a secret hidden inside the "secret room", that dinning room that was reopened in 2012; entering the dining room, you can witness a series of murals painted on the four walls by Frank Brangwyn, in Art Nouveau style, which portray the life and love story between the painter Robert Kitson, and his life partner, the Carlo Siligato from Taormina, but the thing that makes these murals even more special, full of tenderness and sweetness, is that "their secret" (!) is represented in them, it is described visually, as in an "episodic" story that really happened in their lives: Messina (and Reggio Calabria) are destroyed by the terrible earthquake with a tsunami on December 28, 1908, Carlo Siligato, Robert Kitson, Wilhelm von Gloeden and Anatole France leave for Messina, to see and document in person the tragedy, the city was a pile of rubble, many dead, Robert and Carlo see a baby, Francesco, he is alone in the world, without parents who died in the earthquake, abandoned to a certain and sad destiny, a deep desire for protection is born in the two of them, a maternal and paternal desire is born, they decide to takes that little child with them even knowing that they are risking a lot ... (!), what they want to do is something absolutely unthinkable in that historical period, they are a homosexual couple, what they are about to do is absolutely forbidden ..(!) but now there is Francesco in their life, thus becoming, in fact, the first homogenitorial family (with a more generic term, rainbow family) in world history: hence the need to keep the whole story absolutely hidden, both from an artistic point of view , represented by the murals (for more than 100 years, the "dinning room" will be kept hidden), both of what happens in real life, with little Francesco cared for lovingly, but with great risk or. I have allegorically inserted, in the photographic story, some photographs of the artists of the company "Casa del Musical", who came to Taormina to perform during the Christmas period: today as yesterday, Taormina has always been (starting from the last 20 years of the 19th century) center of a crossroads of artists and great personalities, Casa Cuseni also in this has an enormous palmares of illustrious guests, too long to state. The young boys painted on the murals of Casa Cuseni, wear white, this is a sign of purity, they wanted to represent their ideal homosexual world, fighting against the figure dressed in black, short in stature, disturbing, which acquires a negative value, an allegorical figure of the English society of the time, indicating the Victorian morality that did not hesitate to condemn Oscar Wilde, depriving him of all his assets and rights, even preventing him from giving the surname to his children. The boys are inspired by the young Sicilian models photographed by Wilhelm von Gloeden, dressed in white tunics, with their heads surrounded by local flowers. The only female figure present has given rise to various interpretations, one could be Kitson's detachment from his motherland, or his detachment from his mother. On the third wall we witness the birth of the homogenitorial family, both (allegorically Carlo and Kitson with the child in their arms) are in profile, they are walking, the younger man has a long, Greek-style robe, placed on the front, next to him behind him, the sturdier companion holds and gently protects the little child in his arms, as if to spare the companion the effort of a long and uncertain journey, there is in the representation of the family the idea of a long journey, in fact the man holding the child wears heavy shoes, their faces are full of apprehension and concern: in front of them an empty wall, so deliberately left by Frank Brangwin, since their future is unknown, in front of them they have a destiny full of unknowns (at the same time, their path points east, they go towards the rising sun: opening the large window the sun floods everything in the room). In the "secret room" there is the picture painted in 1912 by Alfred E. East, an oil on canvas, representing Lake Bourget. Carlo Siligato later married Costanza, she was my father's grandmother's sister, they had a son, Nino, who for many years lived and worked as a merchant in his father's art workshop. I sincerely thank my colleague Dr. Francesco Spadaro, doctor and esteemed surgeon, owner and director of the "Casa Cuseni" House-Garden-Museum, who, affectionately acting as a guide, gave me the precious opportunity to create "this photographic tour" inside the house- museum and in the "metaphysical garden" of Casa Cuseni. … And the scoop that I announced in the title ..? After photographing the tomb of Carlo Siligato, in the Catholic cemetery of Taormina, I started looking for that of Robert Kitson, in the non-Catholic cemetery of Taormina: when I finally found it (with him lies his niece Daphne Phelps, buried later in 2005) ... I felt a very strong emotion, first of all I was expecting a mausoleum, instead I found a small, very modest tomb on this is not a photo of him, not an epitaph, not a Cross, not a praying Angel to point it out, but ... unexpectedly for a funerary tombstone ... a small bas-relief carved on marble (or stone) depicting ... the Birth ... (!), obviously , having chosen her could have a very specific meaning: a desire to transmit a message, something very profound about him, his tomb thus testified that in his soul, what was really important in life was having a family, with Carlo and baby Francesco, certainly beloved, saved from a certain and sad fate, in the terrible Messina earthquake-tsunami of 28 December 1908 ... almost recalling in an absolute synthesis, at the end of his life, what had already been told in the "secret murals" of Casa Cuseni.
…………………………………………………………………..
Una storia di Taormina: cronache di un amore proibito e del suo grande segreto (non solo Paolo e Francesca) con inaspettato “scoop”.
Questa storia fa parte integrante della storia precedentemente raccontata, il periodo storico è lo stesso, il luogo è lo stesso, i vari personaggi spesso si frequentano tra loro poiché si conoscono; Taormina, tra la fine dell’800 e l’inizio del’900, in un sempre maggiore crescendo, diventa luogo di residenza del turismo d’élite, grazie all’interesse internazionale suscitato ad opera di scrittori ed artisti, come Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, o grandi personalità come Lady Florence Trevelyan: Taormina diventa così famosa, complici i quadri del pittore Otto Geleng e le fotografie dei giovani modelli siciliani di Wilhelm von Gloeden; nell’aria di Taormina si respira un che di libertino, i suoi famosi ed istrionici frequentatori non mancano mai di creare scandalo, superando persino la famosa Capri, nella quale, per citare solo un esempio, l’armiere tedesco Krupp, cercando di ricreare l’ambiente dell’Arcadia che si respirava a Taormina (grazie alle foto di von Gloeden) viene travolto dallo scandalo per omosessualità, e si toglie la vita. Taormina diviene quindi un luogo simil-paradisiaco, lontana dalle civiltà industriali, nella quale poter vivere liberamente la propria vita e la propria sessualità; questo è l’ambiente socio-culturale nel quale si muovono i due protagonisti di questa vicenda, il pittore britannico Robert Hawthorn Kitson (1873 – 1947) ed il pittore Carlo Siligato (nato a Taormina nel 1875, ed ivi morto nel 1959). Robert H. Kitson, nacque a Leeds in Inghilterra, apparteneva ad una famiglia più che benestante, da giovane ingegnere aveva cominciato a sostituire il padre nell’impresa familiare di costruzioni di locomotive (la Kitson & Co.), alla morte del padre nel 1899 vende tutto e decide di trasferirsi ricchissimo in Sicilia a Taormina (vi era stato l’anno precedente con un viaggio fatto coi suoi genitori, qui aveva conosciuto, oltre al barone von Gloeden, anche lo scrittore e poeta Oscar Wilde venuto in Italia, subito dopo aver scontato due anni di prigione ai lavori forzati, con l’accusa di sodomia); Kitson vi si stabilisce perché affetto da una grave forma di febbre reumatica (come von Gloeden gli fu consigliato di curarsi nel clima mediterraneo più mite), sia perché in quanto omosessuale, lascia l’Inghilterra perché l’emendamento Labouchere considerava l’omosessualità un crimine. L’altro protagonista di questa storia è Carlo Siligato, egli era taorminese, aveva frequentato l’Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, pittore molto dotato, era bravissimo nel dipingere ad olio (esponeva i suoi quadri in una bottega d’arte, ancora adesso esistente, in via Teatro Greco a Taormina), l’incontro col pittore Robert Kitson, lo portò ad adottare la tecnica dell’acquarello: quasi a rivivere i versi di Dante su Paolo e Francesca “Galeotto fu ‘l libro e chi lo scrisse” la comune passione per la pittura condusse i due artisti a vivere una intensa storia d’amore. Kitson costruì nel quartiere “Cuseni” di Taormina la sua abitazione, detta per questo “Casa Cuseni”, la casa fu costruita tra il 1900 ed il 1905, le sue decorazioni furono affidate agli artisti Alfred East (pittore verista paesaggista, presidente della Royal Society), e Frank Brangwyn (pittore, decoratore, designer, progettista), egli era allievo di William Morris, leader del movimento inglese “Arts and Crafts” (Arti e Mestieri) che si diffuse in Inghilterra nella seconda metà del XIX secolo (l’Arts and Crafts era una risposta alla industrializzazione dell’Europa, della produzione in massa operata dalle fabbriche, tutto ciò a scapito dell’artigianato tradizionale, da questo movimento ebbe origine l’Art Nouveau, in Italia conosciuta anche come Stile Liberty o Stile Floreale, che si distinse per essere stata un movimento artistico e filosofico, che si sviluppò tra la fine dell’800 ed il primo decennio del ‘900, il cui stile si diffuse in tal modo da essere presente dappertutto). Casa Cuseni ha custodito per 100 anni un segreto che va ben oltre quell’amore proibito vissuto da Robert e Carlo, segreto celato all’interno della “stanza segreta”, quella dinning room che è stata riaperta nel 2012; entrando nella sala da pranzo, si assiste ad una serie di murales realizzati sulle quattro pareti da Frank Brangwyn, in stile Art Nouveau, che ritraggono la vita e la storia d’amore tra il pittore Robert Kitson, ed il suo compagno di vita, il pittore taorminese Carlo Siligato, ma la cosa che rende questi murales ancora più particolari, carichi di tenerezza e dolcezza, è che in essi viene rappresentato “il loro segreto” (!), viene descritto visivamente, come in un racconto “ad episodi” quello che è realmente avvenuto nella loro vita: Messina (e Reggio Calabria) vengono distrutte dal terribile sisma con maremoto il 28 dicembre del 1908, partono per Messina, Carlo Siligato, Robert Kitson, Wilhelm von Gloeden ed Anatole France, per vedere e documentare di persona la tragedia, la città era un cumulo di macerie, moltissimi i morti, Robert e Carlo vedono un piccolo bimbo, Francesco, egli è solo al mondo, privo dei genitori periti nel terremoto, abbandonato ad un certo e triste destino, nasce in loro due un profondo desiderio di protezione, nasce un desiderio materno e paterno, decidono di prende quel piccolo bimbo con loro pur sapendo che stanno rischiando moltissimo…(!) , quello che vogliono fare è una cosa assolutamente impensabile in quel periodo storico, loro sono una coppia omosessuale, quello che stanno per fare è assolutamente proibito..(!) ma oramai c’è Francesco nella loro vita, divenendo così, di fatto, la prima famiglia omogenitoriale (con termine più generico, famiglia arcobaleno) nella storia mondiale: da qui la necessità di tenere assolutamente nascosta tutta la vicenda, sia dal punto di vista artistico, rappresentata dai murales (per più di 100 anni, la “dinning room” verrà tenuta nascosta), sia di quanto accade nella vita reale, col piccolo Francesco accudito amorevolmente, ma con grandissimo rischio. Ho inserito allegoricamente, nel racconto fotografico, alcune fotografie degli artisti della compagnia “Casa del Musical”, giunti a Taormina per esibirsi durante il periodo natalizio: oggi come ieri, Taormina è sempre stata (a partire dagli ultimi 20 anni dell’800) al centro di un crocevia di artisti e grandi personalità, Casa Cuseni anche in questo ha un enorme palmares di ospiti illustri, troppo lungo da enunciare. I giovani ragazzi dipinti sui murales di Casa Cuseni, vestono di bianco, questo è segno di purezza, si è voluto in tal modo rappresentare il loro mondo ideale omosessuale, in lotta contro la figura vestita di nero, bassa di statura, inquietante, che acquista un valore negativo, figura allegorica della società inglese dell’epoca, indicante la morale Vittoriana che non ha esitato a condannare Oscar Wilde, privandolo di tutti i suoi beni e diritti, impedendogli persino di dare il cognome ai suoi figli. I ragazzi sono ispirati ai giovani modelli siciliani fotografati da Wilhelm von Gloeden, vestiti con tuniche bianche, col capo cinto dei fiori locali. L’unica figura femminile presente, ha dato spunto a varie interpretazioni, una potrebbe essere il distacco da parte di Kitson dalla sua madre patria, oppure il distacco da sua madre. Sulla terza parete si assiste alla nascita della famiglia omogenitoriale, entrambi (allegoricamente Carlo e Kitson col bimbo in braccio) sono di profilo, sono in cammino, l’uomo più giovane ha una veste lunga, alla greca, posto sul davanti, accanto a lui, alle sue spalle, il compagno più robusto sostiene in braccio e protegge con dolcezza il piccolo bimbo, quasi a voler risparmiare al compagno la fatica di un lungo ed incerto percorso, vi è nella rappresentazione della famiglia l’idea di un lungo percorso, infatti l’uomo che regge il bimbo indossa delle calzature pesanti, i loro volti sono carichi di apprensione e preoccupazione: davanti a loro una parete vuota, così volutamente lasciata da Frank Brangwin, poiché il loro futuro è ignoto, davanti hanno un destino pieno di incognite (al tempo stesso, il loro cammino indica l’est, vanno verso il sole nascente: aprendo la grande finestra il sole inonda ogni cosa nella stanza).
Nella “stanza segreta” c’è il quadro dipinto nel 1912 da Alfred E. East, un olio su tela, rappresentante il lago Bourget.
Carlo Siligato, successivamente si sposò con Costanza, una sorella della nonna di mio padre, da lei ebbe un figlio, Nino, il quale per tantissimi anni ha vissuto e lavorato come commerciante nella bottega d’arte del padre. Ringrazio di cuore il mio collega dott. Francesco Spadaro, medico e stimato chirurgo, proprietario e direttore della Casa-Giardino-Museo “Casa Cuseni”, il quale, facendomi affettuosamente da cicerone, mi ha dato la preziosa opportunità di realizzare “questo tour fotografico” all’interno dell’abitazione-museo e nel “giardino-metafisico” di Casa Cuseni.
…E lo scoop che ho annunciato nel titolo..? Dopo aver fotografato la tomba di Carlo Siligato, nel cimitero cattolico di Taormina, mi sono messo alla ricerca di quella di Robert Kitson, nel cimitero acattolico di Taormina: quando finalmente l’ho trovata (insieme a lui giace sua nipote Daphne Phelps, seppellita successivamente nel 2005)…ho provato una fortissima commozione, innanzitutto mi aspettavo un mausoleo, invece ho trovato una tomba piccola, molto modesta, su questa non una sua foto, non un epitaffio, non una Croce, non un Angelo pregante ad indicarla, ma … inaspettatamente per una lapide funeraria…un piccolo bassorilievo scolpito su marmo (o su pietra) raffigurante…la Natalità…(!), evidentemente, l’averla scelta potrebbe avere un significato ben preciso: un desiderio di trasmettere un messaggio, qualcosa di molto profondo di lui, la sua tomba testimoniava così che nel suo animo, ciò che in vita fu davvero importante fu l’aver avuto una famiglia, con Carlo e col piccolo Francesco, certamente amatissimo, salvato da un molto probabile triste destino, nel terribile terremoto-maremoto di Messina del 28 dicembre del 1908…quasi rievocando in una sintesi assoluta, al termine della sua vita, ciò che era già stato raccontato nei “murales segreti” di Casa Cuseni.
………………………………………………………………………………….