TriBooTes: "Useless Sea Faun"

after/to Franz von Stuck

and Bruno Munari

Toy Stories: The Archangel Michael

given his fearful strength,
his skin color is
the same as the Incredible Hulk's

Dante explained by his son

Just placed an order for this book, (re)published in 1990. A real gem: Dante's Inferno commented by his son Jacopo.

Santiago #1

A Pilgrimage

TriBooTes: "Dead Island"

after/to Arnold Böcklin

FamiliArt Objects: USB

TriBooTes: "Oedipus"

after/to Gustave Moreau

New Ways To

A witty, dynamic, clever,
brilliant, loonie, funny, tragic, marvel-lous
and superbly drawn
reinterpretation of
the history of
THE super-hero

FamiliArt Objects: tennis racket, clothes peg

Writing by Light: "Frag Men"

Primo: nomen, omen

This is my favorite essay ever, or rather, a collection of essays written by Primo Levi between the 1960s and the 1980s, shortly before his suicide. Italian from Turin, chemist, Jew, atheist, Auschwitz survivor, Primo Levi is famous for his autobiographical report from the Lager Se questo è un uomo (If This Is a Man), but nearly nobody remembers that he has probably been the greatest Italian sci-fi writer of the 20th century. In this book, L'altrui mestiere (The Others' Job), he deals with a lot of miscellaneous subjects: Literature, e.g. Aldous Huxley, Rabelais, Alessandro Manzoni; language; society & costume; religion; technology; biology... each time from a documented, witty, clever, point of view; where each word has been chosen carefully. Moreover, by reading between the lines, this collection of essays turns into a "handbook for life" full of wisdom. And, English-speaking readers would enjoy his supreme art of understatement.

FamiliArt Objects: danger signal

FamiliArt Objects: scissors

TriBooTes: "Pandora"

after/to Max Ernst

Background by Selkis

FamiliArt Objects: mouse, glasses

The Best of the Beast

Just received this book as a gift from a dear friend, Alessandra (many thanks again). A very interesting essay about animals in Art History, from Egypt to Picasso, as well as their role in human cultures and religions, plus a series of wonderful pictures that really show "the best of the beast" as a subject matter, i.e. both unmissable masterpieces and thrilling discoveries. Last but not beast... least, the book presents very high quality standards also materially (paper, print, slipcase).

Starring... Animals: Bees, Lamb, Dog, Horse, Unicorn, Deer, Ermine, Cat, Lion, Leopard, Birds, Snake, Bull... Artists: Lucas Cranach, Jan van Eyck, Piero di Cosimo, Pieter Bruegel, Piero della Francesca, Sandro Botticelli, Vittore Carpaccio, Paul Gauguin, Giacomo Balla, Paolo Uccello, Caravaggio, Franz Marc, Vasilij Kandinsky, Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon, Giorgio De Chirico, Pisanello, Leonardo, Balthus, Lorenzo Lotto, Hans Baldung Grien, Antonello da Messina, Eugène Delacroix, Benozzo Gozzoli, Andrea Mantegna, Correggio, Raffaello, Tintoretto, Max Ernst, William Turner, Michelangelo, Perugino, Rembrandt, Chaim Soutine, Picasso, Bosch, etc.

N.B. The book cannot be purchased by contacting the publisher. The only way to get a copy, 20 euros, is by asking one of the authors, who happens to a friend of Alessandra's. If someone is interested, he/she can make a request directly here.

Meanwhile, here's a personal list for a hypotetical Volume II:

Sea Invertebrates --> still life paintings; Arcimboldo
Tiger --> Antonio Ligabue
Humming Bird --> Gustave Moreau, Jason
Beetle --> Alberto Martini for Poe's tales
Bat --> horror movie posters
"Whale" --> Gustave Doré
Turtle --> Hokusai
Archaeopteryx --> Michelangelo, Charon's ship
Sea Serpent --> Fuseli
Butterfly --> Alberto Martini; Salvador Dalí
Goat --> Picasso

Dante Recolor: Paradise (definitely) lost

Writing by Light: "Dream"

FamiliArt Objects: match, screwdriver

TriBooTes: "War"

after/to Otto Dix

Tempest in Paradise

While rereading Shakespeare's Tempest in English, more and very interesting aspects of the drama keep on emerging. As already mentioned, the "long-nailed savage / monster / strange fish" Caliban could be dressed-up and made-up as the Creature from the Black Lagoon in some experimental performance of the play.
But that would just be a part of a much greater scenario, where the whole Miltonian Paradise Lost tragedy and process of salvation is "fore-told" by Shakespeare. Prospero, for instance, can easily be interpreted as the "prosperous" original Man, Adam the master of Nature, the perfect pattern, the powerful top of creation, even divine, since he reuses a lot of sentences that Christ referred to himself in the Gospels. Whereas - especially - Antonio plays the role of Satan trying to spoil God's good creation, and to destroy brotherly and fraternal love.
A bit more difficult it is to identify Miranda. A suggestion: the "mirror" of Virtue (see medieval symbols) in which human beings can see their best side; pureness; wisdom, and a somewhat half-Buddhist one, for that.

The Bard, anyway, proves quite innovative in his re-presentation of the mystery of Fall and Salvation.
Not to speak of the maze of the mutual relationships: Caliban's condition of a "lackland king" being the same / the opposite as Prospero's; Miranda as the anti-Caliban; Stephano as a mock "god"; Ferdinand being tempted as Macbeth was; etc. etc.

Very difficult issues, clearly. Together with many more problems, e.g. did Shakespeare know and quote Dante? That's why I ask scholars for help, either here or in the Milton List, see subject "Naive questions on Shakespeare's paradise lost".

eRose

background by Selkis

FamiliArt Objects: ladle, ashtray

If not you got no time for no reading

What the Tathagata called "a book, a book" has been taught as "a non-book" by the Tathagata. That's why it is called "a book".

Plus a very interesting essay by Gennaro Iorio about religion, philosophy and mystique.

Il Sutra del Diamante - La cerca del paradiso, traduzione e commento di Mauricio Yushin Marassi, con un saggio filosofico di Gennaro Iorio, Genova-Milano: Marietti, 2011, 246 pages, euros 26

TriBooTes: "Jolly Medusa"

after/to Lucio Fontana

Dante Recolor: United Nations

Hell as a par-condicioning place, tho' not an air-conditioning one.

Toy Stories: Alien attack

FamiliArt Objects: broom, shovel

Writing by Light: "Easter Left"

TriBooTes: "Minotaur"

after/to Picasso

A Midspring Day's Dream

The reading of WS' Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest is proving both awesome and disappointing to an Italian reader.
Awesome because--- well, isn't it obvious, but not that obvious in Italy, where the best known Shakespearean works are such tear-jerker family-sentimental dramas as Hamlet and Romeo & Juliet. Anyway, in Midsummer and Tempest there are a lot of wondrous subjects, superbly, brilliantly dealt with. And, a very interesting issue is WS' rereading of the myth of Eden in both dramas.
Here's the disappointing side: many verses, or episodes, I loved so much in Milton's Paradise Lost, in fact, turn out to be just a reworking on Shakespeare's texts. That's interesting, anyway: Shakespeare reused the theme of Eden, and Milton reused Shakespeare for his own Eden.

As to current literature, not only do fantasy books draw inspiration from the two dramas, but sci-fi does, too. It is both funny and intriguing to think that the Creature from the Black Lagoon was, maybe, partially based on Caliban.

FamiliArt Objects: chair, pencil

TriBooTes: "Marsbound"

after/to Keith Haring

[ Based on the sci-fi novel by Joe Haldeman, just published in Italy as Dula di Marte in the series "Urania". Here's the official cover by Franco Brambilla. ]

FamiliArt Objects: camera

Toy Stories: Spider Man, and Cock-A-Doodle-Doo!

Stories told by secretly using my 4 y.o. niece's "chiodini" (plastic mosaic). 
Two simple exercises, just to begin with. Then I tried some different ways to use them.

FamiliArt Objects: shoes

Writing by Light: "Corner Out of Time"

The master of paradoxes

These last Easter holidays have been a wonderful occasion to discover intriguing books. After the ones already, briefly reviewed below, another book has to be mentioned: The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond, by GK Chesterton, the British (unusually) Catholic writer who created the character of the detective priest Father Brown. Mr. Pond is even more interesting, since - though substantially a lay version of Fr. Brown - his adventures are sort of a 'legacy' of Chesterton, having being published after his death.
The detective side is just a part of the amusement, maybe not the biggest one. The 'hit' being, of course, Mr. Pond's paradoxes, which paradoxically are not paradoxes at all: they lastly prove as just very brief descriptions of real events.
Last but not least, between the lines, the reader quite easily notices that these adventures have much to tell about our psychology, the way this world works, and God--- who is always funnily disguised. He is The Paradox, after all.

Italian version, I paradossi di Mr. Pond, Milano: Vallardi, 1994; very well translated by Manuela Giasi.

FamiliArt Objects: dragons

A series of drawings made together with my nephew Luca (Luke), 11 y.o.

In the one by Luca, please notice the reference to the Holy Grail.