From "Silverware: An After Dinner Story" by Laurie Blair Pessemier Pen/paper 5.5 x 8.5 book 25.00
A Day in Rome Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/canvas panel 12 x 8" 30 x 20cm 175.00
From "Harika Rules" a book by Laurie and Blair Pessemier Blair Pessemier ink/paper 5.5 x 4" book 20.00
Drinking to the Center of the Universe Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/carton 14 x 10" 100.00
Rain rain and more rain.
That’s been the situation here in sunny Italy. We’ve retreated from the hills up North,
where one might soon say snow, snow and more snow, to the Rome area, where it
is just rain. Before we left, we spent
last Sunday with friends in Modena.
We’d never been to the Galerie Estense, the art museum of
Modena, so we made a point of taking advantage of the “free Sunday”. The four of us visited the collection, with
works from the 13th to 18th century, beautifully
curated. I am a great fan of the medieval to early
Renaissance period, which is well represented.
After the artwork, we visited the less sophisticated, but equally
interesting Civic Museum, in the same complex.
We saw fabrics, which Modena was famous for, and dresses by famous
Modena designers. There were tools, and
car bits and all sorts of this-n-thats.
This Sunday we went to a completely different museum, the
Ara Pacis (of Augustus) in Rome. The Ara
Pacis was an altar build to the goddess of Peace by Augustus in 9 BCE. It is more than an altar (which is inside);
it i a structure without a roof, that one would walk into and ponder, or make a
sacrifice, or whatever one would do back then. It was commissioned in 13 BC and
finished in January four years later. It
is a remarkable example of flora and fauna carving of that period. Parts are original; much is reconstructed.
The building was built too close to the Tiber, and was silted over in floods
throughout the centuries. Eventually it
was found again in 1536 (based on drawings of a frieze at that time), but not
officially unearthed until 1936. Recently
Richard Meier designed a wonderful building to
enclose it, and provide additional exhibition space.
In this exhibition space today we saw a show: Aquileia 2200, commemorating this Roman city,
founded 2200 years ago. Aquileia was
periodically the center of the Universe from the Middle Ages, clear up until
the 18th century. There were
objects from the 2nd century until much later. I was unaware of this bit of history, and
Blair and I are thinking of going to see it (well, its remains) in person in
the Friulia Venezia Giulia region.
Museums are the perfect solution for a rainy day, along with
books. As you might know, Blair and I
have written and published 24 “children’s” books over the years. I have resurrected three recent ones for sale
this Christmas. They make up some of the
pictures in today’s artnotes.
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