Been doing some major sightseeing, mostly by walking everywhere. I think you get a better feel of a place by walking and seeing what the locals are up to. Plus, I like burnishing my map-reading skills. Google maps you say? Pah!, we’ll see how good that is when you get led through the Tiber rather than across a bridge. I’m staying in the historic centre so everything I wish to see is within half an hour’s walk at my snail pace. The most astonishing sight? Easy. Walking down a narrow alley, turning right and coming slap-bang across the Trevi Fountain. It’s so unexpected and incredible. It’s exactly how I felt when I came out of the train station in Venice and in front of me, water as far as the eye could see. Extremely cool.

I walked to the incredibly badly signposted Vatican. In fact, the whole of Rome could do with better signage. I was astounded by the first thing I saw, the sphere in the Vatican courtyard. What is that unholy thing doing here, I asked myself. Answer came none, but it gave me the heebie-jeebies. I did a total swerve around it; I can’t believe people were taking their pictures there, totally oblivious. I wouldn’t approach that thing without a flask of holy water while liberally festooned with garlic bulbs. Cripes, not a good start. The museum itself was pretty good although there is a fair amount of what I call ‘indifferent art’ bulking up the good stuff. Stand outs? The Carta Geografica paintings by Ignazio Danti and the amazing ceiling that stretches out in a perfect illustration of the effect of perspective. Incredible. I also really liked the tapestries based on Raffaelo’s cartoons (check them out, the cartoons are in London at the V&A. Take a torch :-)). I think they are some of his best works and the competition with Michelangelo seems to have brought out the best in him.

But, where’s the beef? The Sistine Chapel. This was approached down the dingiest passageways and stairs I saw in the whole Vatican but it only made the contrast to the works even more outstanding. That Michelangelo, eh? What a lad. I walked into this room and my mouth dropped open despite the fact that I’ve seen a gazillion pictures of the works. I was first stunned into silence and then I just had to smile. The superlative talent that went into that room is never going to be equalled in one spot anywhere else on this planet, never, ever. And it’s not just Michelangelo; the other finished works in the room by Perugino, Botticelli, Roselli, Ghirlandaio and Pinturrichio are just as wonderful. I never expected that. I only expected the ceiling. Imagine him standing there with very limited ability to zoom in or out to check perspective, painting that ceiling and feuding with the pope in his spare time, for four years. Ten minutes of craning my neck to look at the ceiling did my back in. Stupendous. It did make me think though. Are crowds going to shuffle through a museum in 500 years’ time, looking in wonder at Damien Hirst’s spot paintings or Rachel Whiteread’s houses, or Tracey Emin’s unmade bed? Will we have a human race that has become so infantilised, it will walk through rooms looking at neon signs and primary-coloured polka dots, and be awestruck? I hope not. Of course Tracey & Damien etc are excellent artists in that they perfectly reflect the debased state of our society. A society from which the ineffable and the sublime have been removed will produce exactly what we see now, so I greatly admire them for getting the joke and reflecting us back to ourselves. Damn shame though, just the same. Too much man, not enough God, and the end result? A very, small, insignificant speck of dust that is not the image of anything.

As if to emphasise that, the room adjacent to the gallery was showing a great collection of miniature oil lamps and random pieces of bronze. From the sublime to the ridiculous. I had to laugh as I looked at this tat. Have you ever been in a museum and thought to yourself, ‘what a load of old tat!’ It happens to me all the time. Note to museums – just because it’s old, it doesn’t mean it’s good. Put that rubbish in a provincial car boot sale and no one would touch it. And it’s not because they’re ignorant. It’s because they know tat when they see it and aren’t too pretentious to call it what it is. There’s a good reason that stuff wasn’t put in a pharaoh’s tomb; it’s ye olde ancient egyptian poundland artifact 🙂 So, all in all, a pretty good day. Plus, I got to see a copy of the Pieta which is my second favourite sculpture after the Nike of Samothrace (this week, anyway). The Sistine Chapel. You’ve got to see it at least once before you die, and then go out and do just one superlative thing so we can tell you passed this way.

Photos: Pieta by Michelangelo; Carta Geografica ceiling, Vatican; Resurrected Christ by Rafaello; View of Basilica San Pietro from the Vatican.

 

Save

Save

Save

Kermit the Frog had that right. My favourite story of the week? The plastic-munching Coral. Scientists have discovered that the coral in the Pacific reefs, far from dying out rapidly due to pollution of the seas with plastic microbeads, have shown a preference for the wretched stuff as they appear to love its taste. They have discovered that these delinquent creatures will ignore their usual food and feed on plastic if given the choice. Coral, Coral, Quite Contrary. Poor eco-warriors have a very heavy cross to bear; you’d need a heart of stone not to laugh. They keep trying to save the earth, and the ungrateful earth keeps thwarting their efforts. My all-time best eco story is from a few years back when Camden Council decided that what with the purported global warming imminently turning Europe into a desert, they would plant olive trees right across the borough in anticipation of the coming Negev-type conditions. What happened next? It snowed for a week, and then rained for six solid weeks. I am sorry to report that the olive trees did not survive. And people say that God has no sense of humour 🙂

Anyways, the poor scientists are now trying to find a way to make plastic less palatable to the coral-palate. Personally, I’m all for banning plastic wrapping from all supermarket food, and we ought to be using only paper and cloth bags. American supermarkets manage to supply paper bags, why can’t we? I have a new theory which might help. It came to me in the bath, as happens with many great (some say insane, but what do they know?) theories do. I wonder if all matter is made from light, and that you get solid material if you slow photons down enough. This actually works really well with the Creation story, “Let there be light, and there was light” It’s the reason why light was produced first; everything else was made from light. Unfortunately, my theory cannot be tested unless you can find a divine being who is willing to co-operate. The converse may be feasible though. Where am I going with this? Well, if it is true, it means that if you can move matter e.g waste materials, fast enough, you can disintegrate it and perhaps transmute the atoms into something useful. It’s just a matter of finding the right resonance and speed. How cool would that be? It’s not that far out; after all, the right sound waves can break glass and damage steel. Dopey alchemists, never mind the philosopher’s stone. They should have been studying quantum mechanics instead.

The cool picture above? It’s of an orchard in Tipperary. The morning after that storm last week, they went to survey the damage and found that pretty much all the apples had fallen from the trees and were laid out neatly in layers with minimal damage. Amazing. I hope they found work for all the pickers who are now not required anymore though. As the saying goes, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.

In the design world, we have the sublime and the ridiculous, as usual. I really like David Uzochukwu’s picture which is on display at AKKA fair in Paris, 10-12 November. It reminds me of an old favourite, Steven Meisel’s photo of Coco Rocha as shown below. Similar idea, totally different vibes. Genius.

And the ridiculous? Montblanc’s $1.8million pen, created as a tribute to Hannibal. No, not Lecter! The Carthaginian general. They have also dedicated it to Baal, adding that satanic touch that every writing implement needs.

 

You may think I’m going to be snooty about the cost, but not I. If Montblanc can persuade some fool to give them 2 million bucks in exchange for a pen, maximum kudos to them so long as the fool is spending his own money. Yes, His. No woman alive would spend 2 million quid on a pen, and no, please don’t write in 🙂 My favourite bit? The blurb going on about how the elephant is covered with hand-set diamonds. Well, why didn’t ya say so at once? Cheque or cash? Y’all have a terrific weekend now.

 

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save