TriBooTes: "Muse"

after/to Giorgio De Chirico

Welcome back, Tony!

Again posting from this old, slow-connection pc, about thrilling books discovered during the (a bit extended) Easter holidays. With a promise: starting from May 1st, a LOT of drawings, photographs and other works of art - even made by using baby toys - will be displayed.

REVIEW N. 1

Welcome back, Tony!!! Referring to Tony DiTerlizzi’s recent novel The Search for WondLa (in Italy Alla ricerca di WondLa, Mondadori). Not read it yet, but a quick overview, especially at the pictures, makes us immediately term it as a masterpiece of DiTerlizzi’s. The more so, as his last works i.e. the illustrations to the second Spiderwick saga, were really disappointing, to go fair-play. The saga had clearly lost all of its original fuel, and his style had sometimes decayed to a beginner’s, sigh. Now in WondLa, where he wrote the story besides illustrating it, everything shows a renewed source of inspiration. The pictures, at least, are probably the best ones ever produced by him, and surely among the finest. Freely and joyfully DiTerlizzi reworks hints taken from Metropolis, Star Wars, James Cameron’s Avatar, and Biology, and possibly HP Lovecraft, Moebius, etc. etc., creating a beautiful, intriguing, standing out brave new alien world.

REVIEW N. 2

Meanwhile, is it still possible to write/draw a book on dragons which is not the usual book on dragons, since we are honestly starting to have enough of them? Bet Tom Wood and Robert Weinberg did, thanks to their Hellfire: Plague of Dragons (in Italy Hellfire - L’invasione dei draghi, De Agostini). In the 14th century, mankind hopefully triumphed in the war against the huge reptilian-devilish flying monsters, though we never heard about it because... ... ... And some danger looms nowadays, nonetheless, since... ... ... Still to be started reading through, this one also, but, for a starter, Wood’s lively, powerful, extreme illustrations are unmissable and unforgettable.

More on God, Money and Conscience

The problems that have been dealt with by father Anselm Grün and the former CEO Jochen Zeitz in the book Gott, Geld und Gewissen (see review below), namely the relationship among Economy, Ethics and Religion, had been better focused on by Thomas More in his Utopia. And the solution proposed by More is that--- there is no “Solution”.
In Book 1, in fact, he presents the opposite opinions of two characters who are both right, since they are the writer himself and Hythlodaeus, the man who will describe the Utopian society in Book 2. As for Book 2, the economic and political pattern which it depicts would never work, as More himself knows, and shows it both by calling this ideal State “Utopia” i.e. No Place, and by continually correcting and fixing the descriptions (“This works like that... but, when/if...”). The more carefully you read the book, the more you notice that Utopia is far from being a perfect place; nor a coherent one, either.
Thomas More, however, arises a lot of issues that are of basic importance nowadays, like the sustainable development, education, justice and death penalty, wealthy vs. poor areas, financial schemes, birth control, euthanasia, the dynamics of power, the legitimate war, the failure of international agreements, our living in a multi-religious society, etc. The most interesting feature probably being his general views about virtue and happines, which are surprisingly close to Baruch Spinoza’s, one century and a half in advance. Surprisingly, for a devout Catholic thinker, even a martyr.
Anyway, the lacking of “one” ultimate solution to the question about the role, in case, of the Christian ethics in economy is not a weak side of More’s but, rather, a sign of his intelligence.

Utopia mirrors Thomas More’s ideas in his glory days. His last book, written immediately before he was executed, is De Tristitia Christi, The Sadness of the Christ (Tommaso Moro, Gesù al Getsemani, traduzione di Simona Erotoli, curatore Domenico Pezzini, Paoline, 2011, pp. 224, euro 11). A wonderful, deep reflection that involves theology, interpretation of the holy Scriptures, psychology, education, humour, tragedy, sociology, autobiography. The center of it all is a clear ability in reading into the heart, that’s the diakrisis ton pneumaton of the Church Fathers.
In De Tristitia Christi we find a sentence that compels us to reread Utopia - as well as Gott, Geld und Gewissen - from a different standpoint: If we tried to turn this world into a paradise, we would fall into a hell.

TriBooTes: "Zeganopos Boy"

after/to Ulisse Aldrovandi [# 2]

No idea about what zeganòpos may ever mean. It is a word written in the original caption in Ulisse Aldrovandi's handbook Monstrorum Historia (The History of Monsters, second half of the 16th century, but published in 1642), in connection to Infans (…) cum promuscide & capitibus animalium i.e. Boy with a trunk and animal heads. Just, whereas infans and the other words are in Latin, this one is in Greek, and was not printed but added by hand; it looks quite badly written, as if by a copyist who tried to imitate a foreign text without understanding its alphabet. So, maybe it was very badly copied, and it should read something like Infans xenanthropos, “Young foreign / alien / strange human being”.

Magnified word detail: courtesy of the Library of the University of Bologna.

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Easter break. The art colums will be back online from May 1st.

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TriBooTes: "Antonietta's Hypertrichosis"

after/to Ulisse Aldrovandi [# 1]

And welcome to
our visitors from
Spain and Switzerland.

God, Money and Conscience

Just finished with the translation of this German book into Italian. Absolutely fascinating. The authors are a Benedictine monk, who already wrote a lot of essays on many subjects, and the CEO of the well-known sportlifestyle brand Puma, the brilliant manager who saved the company from crashing and relaunched it worldwide. (The former CEO, in fact: he retired right on March 15th, while the translation was going on.)

Yes, fascinating: the main theme being the relationship, if any, among Economy, Religion(s) and Ethics. Since Puma now stresses its mission in the light of Sustainable Development, I asked a relative of mine, who knows these issues very well, for information: looks like Puma is "more reliable than many other companies" though it is also true that "they are very good at promoting their own image".

Anyway. Both authors are probably "more clever than saint", but Jochen Zeitz cuts a better figure in general. Bolder, more daring, often giving innovative suggestions about the complex, thorny links between Economy and Religion. Hints that however Fr Anselm often fails to notice, possibly on purpose.

And That Is The Question. Throughout the whole book, the monk NEVER mentions the fact that Jesus died on a cross. The Christian faith is simply shown as a way to live in balance with ourselves and with Nature. Now, I can hardly count as a Christian knight, but it would probably have been worth to reflect 'a bit more' on the social consequences - with pros and cons - of a religion where the God who created the world contacts mankind, and mankind kills him by the hand of its leaders. See e.g. John 1.10 and 12.31.

The dialogue, the Gespräch in the subtitle, would have become much more difficult, of course, but much more interesting.

Photo Expo? Sure!

C'mon, don't be shy, ask the question that you've been chewing over for months:

"Hey, what about photos?"

The first ones will probably be posted after the Easter holidays, if enough interesting subjects happen to come across the lens. Meanwhile here's a recent one called Anabasis:

Meanwhile, other religions don't sleep

The first Italian version of the Diamond Sutra directly from Sanskrit has just been published: translated and commented by the greatest Buddhist philologist in Italy.

How to purchase a copy? Click here

TriBooTes: "mEASTERy of Life"

after/to Grünewald
(Mathis Neithardt - Gothardt)

... wishing a spiritual Easter time to all of you.

Background by Selkis

Introducing a colleague

Alessandra Zorzi is an Italian architect who from the 1990's devotes her time entirely to painting. Her works are currently on exhibition in Umbertide (Umbria, IT) until May 8th, with the title Gabbie per signora, Cages for Ladies. The main theme is in fact the condition of woman worldwide, as being basically exploited and/or oppressed within any culture. 

But the most interesting feature is that Zorzi imitates the style of the main Surrealist painters and the like (Alberto Savinio, Fabrizio Clerici, Dino Buzzati, Folon, Bosch, Piranesi, Goya, Bacon...) making them express her specific issues. Basically like the TriBooTes in this blog.

I can be wrong, but I think that for the picture above the artist has been inspired by another Italian female painter, Barbara Pietrasanta, who incidentally is a friend of mine. The citation is clearer in the complete painting (here only the central part is shown).

Dante Recolor: We'd go down to the river

What's the name of that dude? Bluetooth?

TriBooTes: "Siren Awakening"

after/to Scipione
(Gino Bonichi)

Meanwhile, the first visits from
Latin America i.e. Brazil, Braaa-ziiil
and Eastern European countries
i.e. Romania and Hungary.
Welcome!

Identified Flying Objects

The new FBI website The Vault de-classifies the files about UFOs. The existence of extraterrestrial pilots is no more denied.

TriBooTes: "She-Snail"

after/to Leo Putz

 

... and "Hi!" to a visitor from Iran. (I happened to meet the - possibly - only Italian who spoke Farsi perfectly.)

SO(u)LD

btw, some people have been
catapulted here by
googleing for
"Terrance Lindall"

TriBooTes: "Animal"

after/to En-Uk Sequoya Hwang

Based on this Report.

Ravens can be deceptive

Like every kid, I play a lot with my new colorful toy --- i.e. the blog. Well, by checking the Blogger tools, it turns out that today a guy from abroad found this website by searching for the word string "shall be lifted nevermore" by Google. In fact, by looking for the occurrences of it as a text, unbelievable as it may seem, one of the first results in the first Google page is the EkHeart episode where the famous verse by EA Poe was quoted. Whereas, if you type the same words into Google searching for pics, the drawing with Lucysky's corpse won't appear anywhere.

Was the guy glad with his/her find? 

Or, did he/she comment by the very sentence another websurfer was looking for, when he/she came across this site? "Appearences can be deceptive." :-)

Dante Recolor: Poetry road, take me home...

Every now and then, the TriBooTes will be alternated with these other drawings, which belong to a ink b&w Dantean series I made during the last year at high school ("quinta liceo scientifico" that now, after a big revolution, is called "quinto liceo scientifico"). It was a century ago, 1989, gasp. Here they have been recolored and sometimes a bit cropped, because of what I now see as useless details.

Throughout the series the landscapes are often Dalinian, especially the empty plains full of lines converging toward the horizon, and the long shadows. I had, then, just seen few of his Dantean illustrations in a collective edition (plus Renato Guttuso* and other 20th century artists) in the city library, but I didn't see - and buy - Dali's complete Comedy until the year 2000 or so.

The man who let me know Dali's art since I was a kid was my father, thanks to the wonderful Dalinian Don Quixote I still keep in my library. He also gave me my first copy of the Divine Comedy, which I soon started reading on my own. It included the engravings by Gustave Doré. My whole destine was basically written in those two books, together with the essays on Biology, dinosaurs etc.

Here above: the "ignavi" (slothful), physically mixed with the insects that harass them. These mixings will be a constant.

* P.S. Guttuso admired the typical Sicilian cart art of the brothers Ducato. One relative of the Ducatos is my wife.

Welcome to...

... our first visitors from Nederland / Holland and South Africa.

TriBooTes: "Inspiration"

after/to Dante Gabriel Rossetti

color & background by Selkis

http://gonagai.forumfree.it/?t=51204547

TriBooTes: "Wisdom"

after/to Terrance Lindall