I've seen some flashy tombs in my time but Titian's takes the cake. OK, he was a big shot, he was the top banana, and it was kind of bad luck keeling over with plague just when he was within sight of his 90th birthday. But not as bad as Marietta's luck (Tintoretto's daughter, a talented painter who died at around thirty, probably in childbirth).
And I suppose it's a bit unfair, criticising a guy's tomb, especially if it was created three centuries after his death. All the same, it's a crazy megalomaniac Las Vegas kind of structure. Compare it with Monteverdi's tomb a few yards away: a simple slab set in the floor, inscribed with Claudio's date of birth and death, around a yard wide, no more. Tears came to my eyes because Monteverdi has been part of my life since I was about 18 and first heard his Vespers, and was transported by them into some kind of parallel universe where human beings, like lions, can fly. Winged lions are all very well by the way, but I do worry rather about the songbirds.
So there was Monteverdi, keeping a very modest low profile in death, and there was Titian being commemorated in a way that somehow made me think of Elvis. Somebody had placed a couple of roses on Monteverdi's memorial slab but you couldn't have reached up far enough to do the same for Titian.
In the same church (familiarly known as the Frari) I finally saw the painting that made Henry James come over queer, and he was quite right, it is a heavenly Bellini altarpiece which glows. Apparently Bellini's soulful pouting Madonnas were modelled by his gorgeous pouting mistress. That girl could pout for eternity, and happily, she will.
Thursday 21 May 2015
Wednesday 20 May 2015
Tintoretto and the Wrong Trousers
I found a pair of light cotton trousers and they looked OK in the shop, but when I got them home I realised that the elasticated bottoms weren't a good look, and the blue was a shrieking sort of blue that not even Tiepolo at his bluest would have chosen. I couldn't do much about the blue, but I was determined the elasticated bottoms would go. I didn't want to look like Andy Pandy's mother. So I grabbed the scissors (this apartment has everything) and hacked off the bottoms, then hemmed them amateurishly. The trousers now flapped around my legs like flour bags, at a moment when the sartorial authorities have declared that all trouser legs must be tight-fitting as tourniquets. Never mind. Nobody would look at me anyway. At least I would be cool in the punishing heat. Thus attired I went out in search of Tintoretto. The punishing heat had gone and a light rain was falling. The trousers, to be honest, were beginning to feel a bit too thin.
But I persevered. I hopped onto a vaporetto and chugged round the northern coast to ORTO. The church Madonna del Orto contains the tallest painting ever attempted. I went in. The church was lofty, pink and grey and cream brick and marble - my favourite colours, I can't imagine why I packed all this blue. I just misspelled 'pink' as 'oink'. I just thought you'd like to know.
I was a bit disappointed with Tintoretto's Last Judgement. The whole of the bottom half - hell, yes - was so dark as to be almost invisible. His colours seemed a bit muddy - but perhaps my taste has been corrupted by all the shrieking blue. Still, Tintoretto was roughly contemporary with Elizabeth 1, and when you compare his stuff with the awful primitive tat that was being churned out by English artists of the period, it makes you realise just how grrrrreat he was. My favourite thing in the church was a small dog in a painting by Titian, Tobias and the Angel. I also saw a very macho old pug on the boat. He looked like a tiny bull.
I am happy to record that the English tourists here are some of the least disgusting. There's a lot of debate in Venetian forums about trying not to look like a tourist, and the difference between tourism and travelling. I suppose if you drift past St Mark's square on a cruise ship several storeys high, exclaim raucously and take photos, then sail off to somewhere else, it might exhibit a vulgar attitude to travel which is to be deplored. But as we, the gaping hordes, churn up and down the Grand Canal, gazing at all these palaces built by millionaire merchants to exhibit their wealth and taste, I would have thought they'd be chuffed that hordes of people would come from Wanxian and Wisconsin and Wotton-under Edge to gape, stunned, at the majesty of the place, hundreds of years later. In other words, being a tourist in Venice is just what comes naturally.
But I persevered. I hopped onto a vaporetto and chugged round the northern coast to ORTO. The church Madonna del Orto contains the tallest painting ever attempted. I went in. The church was lofty, pink and grey and cream brick and marble - my favourite colours, I can't imagine why I packed all this blue. I just misspelled 'pink' as 'oink'. I just thought you'd like to know.
I was a bit disappointed with Tintoretto's Last Judgement. The whole of the bottom half - hell, yes - was so dark as to be almost invisible. His colours seemed a bit muddy - but perhaps my taste has been corrupted by all the shrieking blue. Still, Tintoretto was roughly contemporary with Elizabeth 1, and when you compare his stuff with the awful primitive tat that was being churned out by English artists of the period, it makes you realise just how grrrrreat he was. My favourite thing in the church was a small dog in a painting by Titian, Tobias and the Angel. I also saw a very macho old pug on the boat. He looked like a tiny bull.
I am happy to record that the English tourists here are some of the least disgusting. There's a lot of debate in Venetian forums about trying not to look like a tourist, and the difference between tourism and travelling. I suppose if you drift past St Mark's square on a cruise ship several storeys high, exclaim raucously and take photos, then sail off to somewhere else, it might exhibit a vulgar attitude to travel which is to be deplored. But as we, the gaping hordes, churn up and down the Grand Canal, gazing at all these palaces built by millionaire merchants to exhibit their wealth and taste, I would have thought they'd be chuffed that hordes of people would come from Wanxian and Wisconsin and Wotton-under Edge to gape, stunned, at the majesty of the place, hundreds of years later. In other words, being a tourist in Venice is just what comes naturally.
Tuesday 19 May 2015
From Freezer to Deep Fat Fryer: Venice 2015
I'm back in Venice, and just like last time, the worst thing was trying to find Bristol Airport. This time I resorted to Satnav and I still had the feeling, as the steep wooded lanes got more and more narrow, that I was somehow being betrayed by Satnav. One lane was so narrow I doubted whether it would even manage to accommodate an endoscopy, let alone a Kia Sorento. I am, incidentally, irritated by my car's inability to spell Sorrento. Perhaps it is an intellectual rights issue.
Unlike the rest of humanity, I have somehow failed to instal a cute little holder on the dashboard for the Satnav to slot into with a reassuring click. So - sorry to start a sentence with the word so, but this time it's justified as it has a causal connection to the previous sentence - so my Satnav is free range, and as I lurched up and down those narrow lanes, the Satnav hurtled about in the front of a car, like an untrained terrier trying to escape from its lead. I managed to catch a fleeting glimpse of it as it flashed between my thighs heading for the brake pedal, and it seemed to say the journey was going to take another seven hours.
But in fact it was seven minutes, and to my astonishment Satnav delivered me to the airport with a kind of abruptness which almost seemed like the end of a marital row. 'So there's your precious Bristol Airport - actually!' Perhaps it had heard the things I had been screaming at it.
I parked in the Silver Zone, but there was no reduction for silver surfers. The Silver Zone is fine actually, but if you enter the loo accompanied by your luggage there's a chance you'll be trapped there forever. It's not an unpleasant loo as loos go, but I'm not sure it can compare with the Serenissima. (Is that a car yet, by the way?)
Eventually I escaped and found myself trudging across tarmac to the Ryanair flight to Treviso. The bitter wind and rain was horizontal - a tradition in British Maytime - and I had to cling to the handrail with all my strength as I climbed the steps onto the plane, or I would have been blown off to Swindon in tatters. 'It might be a bumpy to start with,' the pilot warned us. I hate it when pilots use the word 'bumpy'. It's like when doctors say, 'So you're worried it might be Something Nasty?' It's infantilising. But on the other hand, 'Waaaaah! Mummeeee! We're gonna die!'
Instead, however, the flight was smooth and pleasant. I'm sorry to have to say this, but I'm quite satisfied with Ryanair. So far. We haven't had the flight home yet.
Anyway, I arrived to find there was a problem. It was hot. On the short walk from the plane to Treviso terminal I removed my anorak, gilet, and woolly jumper - which had not been enough to protect me from the wintry blasts at Bristol. I would fain have removed my vest had it been feasible. On the bus into Venice there was a digital display giving the temperature as 29 degrees. I assumed it was broken, but the bus tipped us out into Piazzale Roma like sausages into a frying pan. What's happened? Last year it was pleasant, but with a chilly breeze. In fact I remember often feeling a bit too cold.
Well, I had to walk to the apartment I had rented in Cannaregio. It's not far, but to a silver surfer wearing a vest and jeans and dragging a suitcase packed with more jumpers and jeans, it was an endless trek. I feared I would end up drinking my own urine and cowering in the shade of my own passport, but just two minutes from death, I arrived.
My flat is most delightful, and very affordable - I'll tell you more about it later. But the problem is the heat. I need to buy a pair of thin cotton trousers to take the place of these damned jeans, but the jeans are squeezing the life out of me and boiling my thighs, so I can't go out in the heat of the day, in search of tropical weight togs.
Oh God! I should be contemplating the tomb of Tintoretto, and instead am wondering if I could get away with wearing my pyjama trousers in the street. They are leopard print. What do you think?
Unlike the rest of humanity, I have somehow failed to instal a cute little holder on the dashboard for the Satnav to slot into with a reassuring click. So - sorry to start a sentence with the word so, but this time it's justified as it has a causal connection to the previous sentence - so my Satnav is free range, and as I lurched up and down those narrow lanes, the Satnav hurtled about in the front of a car, like an untrained terrier trying to escape from its lead. I managed to catch a fleeting glimpse of it as it flashed between my thighs heading for the brake pedal, and it seemed to say the journey was going to take another seven hours.
But in fact it was seven minutes, and to my astonishment Satnav delivered me to the airport with a kind of abruptness which almost seemed like the end of a marital row. 'So there's your precious Bristol Airport - actually!' Perhaps it had heard the things I had been screaming at it.
I parked in the Silver Zone, but there was no reduction for silver surfers. The Silver Zone is fine actually, but if you enter the loo accompanied by your luggage there's a chance you'll be trapped there forever. It's not an unpleasant loo as loos go, but I'm not sure it can compare with the Serenissima. (Is that a car yet, by the way?)
Eventually I escaped and found myself trudging across tarmac to the Ryanair flight to Treviso. The bitter wind and rain was horizontal - a tradition in British Maytime - and I had to cling to the handrail with all my strength as I climbed the steps onto the plane, or I would have been blown off to Swindon in tatters. 'It might be a bumpy to start with,' the pilot warned us. I hate it when pilots use the word 'bumpy'. It's like when doctors say, 'So you're worried it might be Something Nasty?' It's infantilising. But on the other hand, 'Waaaaah! Mummeeee! We're gonna die!'
Instead, however, the flight was smooth and pleasant. I'm sorry to have to say this, but I'm quite satisfied with Ryanair. So far. We haven't had the flight home yet.
Anyway, I arrived to find there was a problem. It was hot. On the short walk from the plane to Treviso terminal I removed my anorak, gilet, and woolly jumper - which had not been enough to protect me from the wintry blasts at Bristol. I would fain have removed my vest had it been feasible. On the bus into Venice there was a digital display giving the temperature as 29 degrees. I assumed it was broken, but the bus tipped us out into Piazzale Roma like sausages into a frying pan. What's happened? Last year it was pleasant, but with a chilly breeze. In fact I remember often feeling a bit too cold.
Well, I had to walk to the apartment I had rented in Cannaregio. It's not far, but to a silver surfer wearing a vest and jeans and dragging a suitcase packed with more jumpers and jeans, it was an endless trek. I feared I would end up drinking my own urine and cowering in the shade of my own passport, but just two minutes from death, I arrived.
My flat is most delightful, and very affordable - I'll tell you more about it later. But the problem is the heat. I need to buy a pair of thin cotton trousers to take the place of these damned jeans, but the jeans are squeezing the life out of me and boiling my thighs, so I can't go out in the heat of the day, in search of tropical weight togs.
Oh God! I should be contemplating the tomb of Tintoretto, and instead am wondering if I could get away with wearing my pyjama trousers in the street. They are leopard print. What do you think?
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