"Here my are!" wishing you a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year

When I came to Italy, I was told that it's a tradition to do a little bit of everything on the first day of the new year that you want to do for the rest of the year....More......

Whether it's really a widespread tradition, or not, I honestly don't care. I liked the idea a lot, and so immediately adopted it, and have done it ever since. So far, today, I have:

--eaten some panettone
--shared a yummy meal with some yummy wine with a very nice friend
--SMS-ed, e-mailed and Skyped other friends
--worked a bit
--FB-ed a bit
--at least touched my needlepoint and sewing supplies
--taken and downloaded photos
--and am "chatting" with you via my blog.

What else is on the horizon before today is over?

--champagne
--fun reading
--calling some friends
--one of my all-time favorite movies, "American Dreamer".

How about you?

"Here my are!" on this rainy chilly New Year's Day in Milan.

Enjoy!

"Here my are!," it's Thanksgiving Day, my favorite holiday...

...because it means a paid day off, relaxing with loved ones and eating scrumptious calorie-laden food guilt-free....More......

Well, it *did* mean a paid day off...it's not observed in Italy, so that's a no go.

No family close by, either, but they are just a Skype call away, so no complaining (well, not much).

And the T-Day calories (if not turkey) have been put off 'til Sunday's brunch with sweet friends.

Nothing but work planned for today...but I'm not complaining in the least. Let's start the "I'm grateful for..." list with that.

I'm grateful I have a job, and even more grateful because it's a job I enjoy and my co-workers and students (mostly) nourish my soul.

I'm grateful that I'm in relatively good health, and--despite the usual aches and pains just about everyone has--I can walk, I can breathe, I can move around and do things for myself without hindrances.

I'm grateful that I have a clean warm bed; a clean, warm and quiet home; internet and a computer (how would I work without these, anymore?!) and that I still can open my heart to the little joys and beauties around me.

And though the Cosmos has not been very kind to me in these last two years, I have a new reason to be grateful. As a friend just said to me the other day, "I'm grateful even for the disasters that haven't come my way."

"Here my are!" wishing you a Happy (and grateful) Thanksgiving.

Enjoy!

(Photo: I snapped it not too long ago in via San Michele del Carso for your personal non-commercial pleasure.)

Ferrara...finally!

It's rather embarrassing...an art historian of Italian Renaissance art and architecture, who'd never been to Ferrara...but I finally remedied that on Sunday, with a small delightful group of friends.

Now I wonder why I'd waited so long! (Truth to tell, getting there with public transportation is MUCH more pleasant, now that there's a FAST train from Milan to Bologna, where you have to change.)

Lovely, and VERY much worth the little bit of effort to go. More......

A trip to the Palazzo Diamante (so-called for the diamond-shaped points on the mansion's exterior) to see the exhibit of the works of the Spanish Impressionist Sorolla (marvellous!) was the occasion. No picture-taking allowed, so you'll have to look him up for yourself.











Este ruler portraits literally put up on pedestals right across from the Duomo...just in case you weren't clear who was in charge.










A pair of scary lions and sphinxes to protect the Duomo.















Churches galore (this one's San Francesco), which we didn't have time to explore...have to go back!


And the other reason for going: Palazzo Schifanoia ("Get Rid of Boredom Mansion"), though I have to confess that the famous Renaissance frescoes were much less impressive than the somewhat later frescoes in the ducal palace in Urbino, in large part because of the poor state of conservation of most of them. Still, it was important to go and see for myself.

So, 'here my are!' in Ferrara!

Star's for the trip? 4.5 out of 5 (nibbling a bit off for the fact that one has to change trains once, but really it's no biggie)

Go, and enjoy!

Here my are!

Another snap from the "O bej! O bej!" fair, yesterday.

"Here my are!" shadowed on the back of a woman's coat.

(For the "Here my are!" history, see: http://mymilanitaly.blogspot.com/2010/08/here-my-are.html.)

Enjoy!

Wordless Wednesday (33)

A lovely Sunday in Milan: here my are!

What gorgeous (rapidly) hot and clear weather we had, today. Not a cloud in the BLUE sky. My desk is full of work and my calendar is full of deadlines, but I couldn't resist. Work and bad weather have been keeping me trapped inside for donkey's years, so, camera in hand, off I went right after lunch, and got back at almost 8 P.M., with plenty of light still reigning. Too hard to pick just a couple of photos, so I thought I'd take you along with me on my walk...More......



After finishing something long and enriching, I remembered that there is an odd thought-provoking sculpture in front of the provincial government building, so I decided to try my luck with the lighting. Got off the public transportation near the Duomo (couldn't resist the shot, though I have gazillions of them), and headed off back behind it.



The "promo" sculpture for the Paladino show at the Palazzo Reale (unfortunately) is still in situ.












Passed by the 16th century police headquarters, today the seat for the "Vigili" (street police). I've got an idea about how to talk about this in the future, so I won't spill my beans, here. I actually had wanted to check out the lighting on the sculpture of Cesare Beccaria in the piazza just out of sight to the left, but it already was covered in shade, so I didn't bother. I STILL don't have a decent photo of that sculpture. sigh. This author wrote his famous and influential "Of Crimes and Punishment" in the mid-eighteenth century, already against capital punishment. Amazing foresight.



"What's so special about this?," you ask. Apart from being a good back-side shot of the "curtain" of rather blecky (in my opinion) post-WWII architecture...perhaps by Caccia Dominioni, perhaps by Magistretti...on Corso Europa (the front side's no better), look more carefully at the bottom left...there's a fragment of the ancient Roman baths that used to be in this very spot. Out of sight just to the right is a little ancient church. Bits and pieces of antiquity peeking up like grass through modern tarmac. I love it.






Now we're already in Piazza San Babila (where rivers used to go under the ancient Roman walls) looking at Ponti's post-WWII building.















Still in Piazza San Babila looking at...San Babila. An Early Christian church, redone over and over and over again throughout the centuries till there's not much left of the real McCoy (the façade is late 19th century and the bell tower is from the 1930s!).






On Corso Monforte at the corner of via Conservatorio, an explosion of revived Art Nouveau mixed with Lombard Baroque by Alfredo Campanini...my handy dandy "Touring" guide to Milan gives the date of 1911, but the building bears the date of 1923, and it would be a bit odd to put the date on the building twelve years after it was constructed...maybe it was DESIGNED in 1911, but FINISHED in 1923. Oh man, another conundrum to follow up on...




...Conundrum, or not, its putti were too adorable to resist. Are you tired, yet? Courage! We're almost to the originally planned destination!










Tah dah!...Today's goal: the 2008 sculpture called "L'Uomo della luce" ("The man of light") by Bernardi Roig in honor of all victims of terrorism (of which Milan saw quite a bit in the years following the university student and left-leaning uprisings in 1968). This life-sized sculpture is located in the little piazza in front of the Via Vivaio entrance added by Giovanni Muzio (1940 ca.) to the provincial government offices in the adjacent historic structure (worth its own later post) on Corso Monforte. The first time I saw this sculpture, we passed it at night, and it scared me because I thought it was a real and crazy person with lights doing some kind of insane tight rope act, or thievery.



Not particularly "pretty" (though contemporary art doesn't really try, anymore, does it...another sigh...), and certainly getting pretty dirty, but maybe that was part of the artist's plan to emphasize the tough burden of trying to bring light to a hopelessly dark situation, soon doomed to failure (why? note that the beam on which the figure is walking ends abruptly). At first I thought it was a temporary installation, but it's been there for a few years, so I guess it's there to stay. Activates the piazza in a thought-provoking way. Just a few steps further down, something else thought-provoking caught my eye.


Had kept on going down via Vivaio, passed two panels of low relief art on this part of the province's seat that had just been completed and inaugurated prior to the worst of the WWII bombing raids in 1943 by US and UK planes smashing bits of this very building (and at least 25% of the city of Milan) into smithereens (what rotten luck, but if you play with fire...). Snapped a few shots, and keen looking from the other side of the fence rewarded me with the name of the artist faintly chiseled into the lower right of this one: Ivo Soli. Was just about to move on when, "Wait a minute.... Is that...? Could it be...? Yes, it is!"





Not just "damnatio memoriae," but literally rewriting history. Now reading "Italian laws entrust to the provincial government the task of the care of motherhood and childhood," if you look closely enough, the word "Italian" is an inserted bit of stone. The rest of the plaque is still whole. I'll bet you a cappuccino that it originally said "Fascist" (both ending here with the plural feminine "e"). There are instances of this all over town. Sometimes it takes the right light to see it because all that's left are the faintest of scratches, or darkenings, where the Fascist symbols and dating system used to be. Maybe I'll go into that another day, as that's a whole other can o' worms.




Still in via Vivaio, I passed the Istituto dei Ciechi (Institute for the Blind), where there is the possibility to immerse oneself, even if only temporarily, in a simulation of what it must be like to be blind: cocktails, dinner, business meetings and special events in the pitch black. I've heard it's an amazing experience, though it sounds a bit scary for me, but you might want to try it. Groups (in Italian, I imagine) are available: 02.7639.4478, http://www.dialogonelbuio.org.







At the end of via Vivaio, on the corner of via Cappuccino, there is the fascinating Berri-Merigalli building by Arata (1911-1914). It's...
















...fascinatingly ghoulish and Neo-Romanesque.















On to viale Piave and what could be a remaining nibble of the Spanish Walls (begun in the mid-16th century, they encircled Milan until they were torn down as useless in the period of peace under the Austrian Hapsburgs at the end of the 18th century...the city was less defensible, but it was also less able to defend itself against the Hapsburgs without its walls...they were some smart cookies). A few steps ahead, and...



...here we are at Porta Venezia (because the street led to Venice). The gate and the taxman offices in the old Spanish walls HAD been, but were no more because the walls had been torn down, remember? Piermarini had started to build (but never finished) symbolic gates for the tax men, so the crumbling half-built pair of structures was torn down and replaced in 1827-38 by Vantini (this is the one on the left, with your back to the center of town). From here, it was quite a hike under the hot sun past the public gardens commissioned by the Hapsburgs from Piermarini for the city in areas confiscated from monasteries.



Finally having arrived in Piazza Republica, at the end where the train station USED to be (until it was moved farther down a bit, and is now the Stazione Centrale), here's a snap of some of the post-WWII buildings that went up in the area. I shot this just before I collapsed on the bus for home.



Are you as tired as I am? It was a lovely day, though, so I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

A lovely lovely walk after days of rain (and the flu)...Here my are!

Warmish temps (for the first time in months, I walked around with my coat unbuttoned), blue blue skies with a few puffy white clouds, new buds on trees and shrubs, clean fresh air (well, it seemed fresh and clean). It was a close call. I was very tempted to stay indoors, rest, read and do a little needlepoint, but all that can be done in the evening. Instead, right after lunch, I booted myself out of the door, grumbling to myself, but already knowing that it was the right choice. Once again, the camera was the deciding factor, so here is proof that I actually stuck my nose out of the door, walked, walked, walked for an hour and a half, and snapped away with you in mind...More......


The city has lots of little and medium sized parks scattered all over, and many have fenced areas dedicated to letting people's dogs run free...which doesn't stop Italians from ignoring the law to keep dogs on leashes anywhere else. (Thank the Cosmos, cleaning up in public places after one's dog is finally starting to penetrate into the Italians' skulls, but there still are too many egoists, who don't remember that "no man is an island." You wanted the dog? There are responsibilities that go hand in hand with the delights. O.K., I'll get off my soap box, now,...if people have picked up their dogs' business in the vicinity.)



A snippet of park along side the dog area. This snap is for Chris, whose blog, Serendipitous, about the nature she sees and enjoys around her house lifts my spirits.





Here my are!, shadowed against one of Milan's too few bike paths. IMHO, however, that isn't an excuse for the arrogant behavior of the cyclists. Folks, it's called a "sidewalk" because it's on the side of the street, and one walks, not bikes, on it.






Don't drive, it's late and dark, and don't want to risk the bus (limited info in English), but can't afford a taxi, especially repeatedly? There's an excellent compromise available: RadioBus. Like any compromise, there's good and bad. The good part is that at the appointed time a small van passes at a pre-appointed point near where you are, and--for just twice the price of a bus trip--will take you to a pre-appointed place very close to home. The bad part is that the service isn't available during the day time (so as not to compete too much with taxis), and can be reserved only up to three days in advance, so--with that time limit--there isn't always a seat available (especially if you're more than one person). But it's still a great deal.



Surprise! Exposed train tracks right around a couple of corners, and I didn't even know it. Must be part of what is known in Milan as the "passante," a light rail system, sometimes underground, sometimes overground, as there's a stop of one of the lines nearby (info in Italian). In town, the system works just like part of the subway, and the same tickets are used. Once outside a certain circumference, for example, a nearby town (such as Saronno, where there is a museum dedicated to maiolica, which I've been promising myself for years I'd go see), the tickets cost more.




Oh yeah, if you drive, in the last couple of years a pass to enter the within the area once circumferenced by the Spanish Walls has been instituted: the "Ecopass" (info in Italian; only parts of the web site are in English: go to the home page, and select one of the handful of languages available in the pulldown menu on the upper right). You even can pay online, after having entered, but don't forget to do it, quickly, or you'll get a fine ("multa"). There's also a "ZTL" (Limited Traffic Zone) in which only residents are allowed, usually from 10 P.M. to 8 A.M. I'm sure the bar, restaurant and nightclub owners are happy about that, but--with all the noise they create--you can't blame the residents for wanting the restriction, either. Those zones are marked with large brown signs.



Click. Nothing happens. Click. Nothing, again. Click, click, click, click, click. Still nothing. Has your car's remote locking device stop working all of a sudden? You may be near to a TV and radio antenna. Here's a snap of the antenna of the national service today called RAI, whose (gorgeously rationalist with a bit of flair) original 1929 building was constructed on Corso Sempione by Gio Ponti. (Can't find my picture of it; this snap was taken down a side street...will hunt, and try to remember to post it, later.)



After the walk, the happy snapping (despite the suspicious glances...the Milanese are so funny, they can't imagine anyone loving their own city), I feel so refreshed.

A perfect Milanese day.

You'll never work in this town again, or my thoughts on the new museum dedicated to 20th century art in Milan

It sounded like such an exciting prospect…a new museum in Milan dedicated to modern Italian art of the first half of the 20th century, during which Italian artists contributed not just locally, but also internationally to the art scene. In truth, there is great merit in the project. Finally gathering together and displaying the important bits and pieces previously scattered around town and in storerooms is of undeniable value. Further, if memory serves, during the first couple of months every day at least four thousand people waited in long lines to visit the museum—while entrance was free—under the cold winter sun, or drenching freezing rain, and, believe me, there has been a lot of rain.

I got lucky on the way home from work, one day…absolutely no line!...and so I uncharacteristically did something spontaneous (it wasn’t easy), and went right in, more to see the new museum, itself, than to look at the individual pieces....More......


...I’ll never work in this town, again, after this post, but…where to begin with all the aspects of my deep disappointment at such a missed golden opportunity?

I’ll admit first off that, in addition to welcoming the gathering together and displaying of these works, I’m in total agreement with the museum planners regarding the conception of the display of the objects: chronological order and thematic.

Why is this a big deal, you ask?

It is more of a big deal than non-art historians and non-museologists might think.

The way something is presented to you gives you a lot of subconscious information, and presenting something in chronological order leads the uninformed public into thinking that the changes were “natural” and “unavoidable progress.” These notions have been debunked, so let’s toss them out right away, too.

If, then, the chronological approach is so risky, why am I so in favor of it? Because, aided by this eye-opening information and other aspects, such as thematic groupings, it can help us put things into context.

Here stops the agreement, and starts the J’accuse.

The inner space has been horribly planned.

Fair is fair. I’ll admit right away that I don’t know what the spaces were like before they gutted the “Arengario” (a public hall/loggia for proclamations and debates) for the museum, and the interior already wasn’t as it had been originally, anyway.

The structure, itself, has a complex history, which—for our purposes, here—can be summarized briefly.

Next to the Duomo, the Arengario on the left is part of the ex-Royal Palace (with ancient Visconti and Sforza roots). In the second half of the 1930s during the years that Italians euphemistically call “of the Consensus” (that is, the general and widespread support for the policies of Mussolini and Fascism…before your hackles rise, you should know more about both, both good and bad, than there is space, here, to detail), it pointedly took the place of a mid 19th century wing and loggia—themselves replacing more ancient structures—that had been planned for appearances of the representatives of the new Savoy monarchy in those years shortly after the Unification of Italy. Shortly after WWII, this pair of mirror-image structures opening the street between the Piazza del Duomo and the adjacent Piazza Diaz were gutted, reconstructed internally and finished. The structure on the right is still occupied by city offices. The structure on the left, now dedicated to the new museum, was occupied by the conveniently and visibly located provincial tourism office once called APT, now called IAT and moved into the poorly marked underground refurbished bowels of the ex-Cobianchi Day Hotel (1924) on the other side of the piazza, accessible via curving staircases, or a glass elevator in November of 2010 to the Piazza Castello, 1 (MM1/red stop "Cairoli").

So, what’s so awful about the use of space in the new museum?

Almost the entire area (it seems so, anyway) of the cube full of windows giving onto Piazza Duomo has been gobbled up by a poor and perfectly useless—artistically speaking—spiral staircase. The Guggenheim—without the paintings!—comes immediately to mind, though the architects, Italo Rotta and Fabio Fornarsari say they were inspired by the spiral staircase in the Vatican.

Whatever.

It is a horrible waste of space and natural light, and it makes the new museum jut out into the space of the original portico…‘making it interactive with the surrounding space,’ you say? I say ‘a faddish and useless violation of the original structure,’ but that’s my personal opinion.

What else is so wrong about the new museum?

The display already is covered with inches of virtual dust and mold.

Painting. Painting. Painting. Sculpture. Painting. White walls. White light. Silence. Nothing interactive. No videos (at least not yet). No integration of contemporary music (particularly music inspired by the art periods in questions, such as Futurism), let alone other aspects of daily life (cooking…Futurism, again). Old. Old. Old.

I really didn’t expect this for a museum dedicated to such dynamic art from the early 20th century up to the end of the 1960s (the rest up to and including contemporary art is planned for yet another new museum…where? …when? One imagines in time for the 2015 Expo).

What else?

Like the apple of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, the fascination with “genius” is just too hard to resist, apparently. Furthermore, in the initial hall it’s apparent from the awkward placement of the closing wall with regard to the columns and ceiling that the gracious original space of the hall has been violated. But those are arguments for specialists.

What will bug even non-specialists, especially if they’re tall, with bad backs and have less than perfect sight like me, is the faddish choice of creating the art work labels in print soooooo small that even a micron microscope probably wouldn’t help, and, what’s more, placing them really really low, so that one has to bow before the art work like a humbled devotee, while risking having to be carried out on a stretcher because it’s impossible to straighten back up.

What was the one positive really heart-opening surprise?

Taking the escalator up to the top floor, and realizing as I inched my way up, that that wasn’t just any ol’ ceiling. Whatever one thinks of the works of Fontana (and I’m no great fan of modern art after the Fauves), it was a delightful surprise to find myself ascending towards and almost up into his delicate “Spatial Ceiling,” which he had created in 1956 for a hotel on the Isle of Elba.

Another pleasant surprise? The winsome Marini sculpture visible from outside (here framed by my shadow).

So, now that the very reasonable ticket prices have been installed (and visitors have dropped to the very respectable 1000 a day), is it still worth going?

Yes, for the fantastic views of the Piazza and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele (there’s also an expensive caffé-restaurant).

Yes, to see the collections, with these caveats in mind.

Yes, to support the arts in Milan.

Culture is us. To understand who we are now, how we want to be, and where we want to go—in other words, to form good citizens—studying history in all its forms is fundamental.

And it helps the economy grind around, which doesn’t hurt, either.

I snapped the photos with you in mind on the 12th of December at about 5:15 P.M.


Sources:

Migliavacca, Carlo, “Milano Museo del Novecento Un secolo da collezione”, Bell’Italia, n. 298 (Feb 2011), pp. 36-44

“Albergo diurno Cobianchi”, http://www.visitamilano.it/turismo/audio_video/cobianchi/index.html

TOURING, Milano, Milano: Touring Club Italiano, ristampa aggiornata 2000

Wordless Wednesday (14); Here My Are (7)

Happy, Healthy, Prosperous and Serene New Year

Now that Christmas 2010 is over, and 2011 already is a couple of days old (where did THAT time fly?!), here are a few polar bears and a chaperone deer I snapped around 1 P.M. in a florist's window on Piazza Missori during my New Year's Eve search for photos for you....More......






Deciding what to say to start the New Year right, some topics are being put off, at least for a few days, and I decided to focus on my goals for this blog: my photos, my thoughts, my slice of this city.

"Here my are!" reflected, along with the façade of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, in the glass of this new museum dedicated to 20th century art, particularly the first half, when Italy played such an important international role in the development of art.







This guy on the Rococo façade of Palazzo Litta on Corso Magenta looks like he had too much to drink on Christmas Eve.

For the origin of the "Here My Are!" theme, see my: http://mymilanitaly.blogspot.com/2010/08/here-my-are.html.

I snapped some other fun shots for you on Christmas Eve day and New Year's Day, and I'll get to reviewing the new museum, soon, but I'm falling asleep at the keyboard, so I just wanted to thank you for reading my blog, and to welcome you back for 2011.

I hope we all have a Happy, Healthy, Prosperous and Serene New Year!

Here My Are! (05)

Here My Are! One of the Three Goddesses (no hubris intended, Gods of Olympus!, just making fun of myself!) in a window not far from Milan's version of L'Arc de Triomphe located in Parco Sempione on the far side of the Visconti-Sforza castle, the beginning (or end, depending on your point-of-view) of the road Napoleon imagined from Paris to Milan, one of the principal cities of Italy, which he had liberated from the Austrians, then changed himself from youthful disinterested general into paternalistic emperor.

For the origin of the "Here My Are!" theme, see my: http://mymilanitaly.blogspot.com/2010/08/here-my-are.html.

This photo was snapped for you on December 11, 2010, at about 1:45 P.M.

Enjoy!

Here my are! (04)

Too good to pass up. Calvin and Hobbes in a stationery store window, at just the right height.

I snapped this photo for you on the 19th of September, 2010, at about 2 P.M.

Here my are! (03)

I have a cold. (Curses on whoever it was sneezing--without covering their mouth--on the subway the other day...did you know that germs can live for hours in teentsy water droplets after being sneezed?)...More......

I hope to feel better tomorrow, but, in the meantime, I've decided to stay indoors, today.

Anyway, it's raining.

So here's a new "Here my are!" snapped yesterday, Saturday the 16th of October, before noon, in the cloistered walkway of Chiaravalle, one of the monasteries just outside of Milan.

If you're coming to town, don't miss it, it's gorgeous--the 14th century post-Giotto frescoes in the church crossing have finally been uncovered after years of restoration--and their little shop sells marvie stuff made by the monks of this and other monasteries. I got some great face creams, which I've been using happily for years, but there also are herbal teas, wine, beer, and various health and beauty concoctions for sale at (usually modest) prices.

Oh, and they accept ATM cards (called "bancomat"), in case you're short of cash.

Here my are! (02)

Here I am with "Fiorello", one of Italy's favorite young showmen, a real natural. He also appeared in a series of much loved advertisements with an elderly and also much loved showman, Mike Buongiorno, recently deceased. A few subsequent ads for the same company with only Fiorello were successful, at least I think so, so I don't understand why...More...

...the ad and product companies felt the need to create another sidekick for Fiorello. Since Mike would be virtually impossible to replace with a real person, they invented a giant mole (!) named "Ugo," whom Fiorello invites to not bury his head in the ground, but to buy this product, instead.

It's weak, but maybe it's just new.

Sunday, the 26th of September, 2010, when I snapped this shot for you at 4:50 P.M., was overcast, so, except for this and one other snap, most of my photos for that day are what I call "work shots": views of art/architectural stuff, which might come in handy as a reference should I not make it back on a sunny day, but which won't be pleasing enough to share.

We had a few, but busy, beautiful days, and now that it's the weekend, and I could wander about snapping pics, it's overcast, again.

Oh well, I really did need to clean my desk, anyway....