The Blues in Venice

I'm staying in an ecclesiastical guest house just behind the church Gesuati, and I knew that Tiepolo had gone bananas there, all over the ceiling, so I nipped in for a look. I'd been practising looking at ceilings at home but had seen nothing more than a few beautifully-constructed spiders' webs. In the event I didn't need to crane and totter - there was a mirror sensibly provided in the aisle: you gazed down into it and saw the ceiling reflected. Or that was the idea. What you actually saw, in the foreground and blotting out the Tiepolo, was your own nostrils. Mortified to be reminded that after so many decades, my nostrils still do not match.
Eventually I tore my eyes away from my own shortcomings and admired the sky blue vault with its swarms of cherubs. I think I'd like a cherub for my next pet. You could take it to the park and fly it round like a boy with a model plane. I'm sorely tempted by the winged lions, too - not as a pet, but as a means of transport. Alternative to, say, a Ferrari.
Tiepolo paints good babies. Jesus appeared to be waving to the angels, but closer inspection revealed he was brandishing a rosary. At first I took it for a teething aid. But I'm a novice when it comes to rosaries so its esoteric mysteries are beyond me. However, I do know a good light blue when I see one, and I have to say Tiepolo excels. In fact if he'd been at Cambridge he'd have got a Blue for blue.
Then, in search of dark blue, I entered the Accademia. After suffering a brisk interrogation as to my antiquity I was awarded a massive discount, and I had the place all to myself, no matter what the guidebook says. It was mainly the Bellinis I had come to see, and they were there, the Madonnas and babies, and the Marian robes were quite the best of dark blues ever. You only have to see a Bellini next to somebody not quite so good to realise how superb he is.  Giovanni, that is. His dad and his brother just don't quite have it. The expression of these Madonnas is extraordinarily dreamy and detached, and they look somehow very modern girls - one can imagine them not-quite concentrating on their physics homework.
But it was Carpaccio who really wowed me, with his series about the life of St Ursula. Poor Ursula organised a kind of school trip as part of a pre-nuptial agreement, and she and her hundred girly friends were massacred, I forget by whom. Apart from the rather horrid painting of the massacre, all the other pictures were just fascinating and filled with extraordinarily pretty boys. Anyone interested in beautiful men should instantly scrutinise Carpaccio's Miracle of the Thingummyjig near the Rialto. That boy on the left with his back to us - was there anything ever more camp? And the gondoliers, bless them with their jazzy tights and shoulder length curly hair. Cripes! Who needs HRT?
After having these unworthy thoughts perhaps it was only fair that I should have gone out and paid £36 for fish and chips - though it was sea bass, and filleted at the table for me, etc etc. It's back to street pizzas tonight /- though I have a feeling that also means grazed knees. One does hope not.