The artist I select for today will be Sandro Botticelli, March 1, 1444/45 – May 17, 1510.
and the very popular and well-known
Friday, January 18, 2008
Fine Art Friday
I've noticed that on Fridays many blogs participate in Poetry Friday. It's a wonderful opportunity for a person who really doesn't care for poetry like yours truly, to read some lovely poetry. But I am an art-lover and was happy to spot this new Friday theme on Exspectantes's Blog Fine Arts Friday. BTW, I owe my love of art, especially the Italian Art of the Early Renaissance, Renaissance and the Post-Impressionists to my art history professor, Dr. Karl Lunde. He made art-history come alive in his lectures.
The artist I select for today will be Sandro Botticelli, March 1, 1444/45 – May 17, 1510.
The Annunciation
The Birth of Jesus
Madonna and Child
and the very popular and well-known
Birth of Venus
The artist I select for today will be Sandro Botticelli, March 1, 1444/45 – May 17, 1510.
and the very popular and well-known
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7 comments:
Thank you for sharing that beautiful artwork.
Glad you liked it Chris!
Gorgeous. A poet you may like a lot is Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Your art reminded me of this one:
37. The Blessed Virgin compared to the Air we Breathe
WILD air, world-mothering air,
Nestling me everywhere,
That each eyelash or hair
Girdles; goes home betwixt
The fleeciest, frailest-flixed 5
Snowflake; that ’s fairly mixed
With, riddles, and is rife
In every least thing’s life;
This needful, never spent,
And nursing element; 10
My more than meat and drink,
My meal at every wink;
This air, which, by life’s law,
My lung must draw and draw
Now but to breathe its praise, 15
Minds me in many ways
Of her who not only
Gave God’s infinity
Dwindled to infancy
Welcome in womb and breast, 20
Birth, milk, and all the rest
But mothers each new grace
That does now reach our race—
Mary Immaculate,
Merely a woman, yet 25
Whose presence, power is
Great as no goddess’s
Was deemèd, dreamèd; who
This one work has to do—
Let all God’s glory through, 30
God’s glory which would go
Through her and from her flow
Off, and no way but so.
I say that we are wound
With mercy round and round 35
As if with air: the same
Is Mary, more by name.
She, wild web, wondrous robe,
Mantles the guilty globe,
Since God has let dispense 40
Her prayers his providence:
Nay, more than almoner,
The sweet alms’ self is her
And men are meant to share
Her life as life does air. 45
If I have understood,
She holds high motherhood
Towards all our ghostly good
And plays in grace her part
About man’s beating heart, 50
Laying, like air’s fine flood,
The deathdance in his blood;
Yet no part but what will
Be Christ our Saviour still.
Of her flesh he took flesh: 55
He does take fresh and fresh,
Though much the mystery how,
Not flesh but spirit now
And makes, O marvellous!
New Nazareths in us, 60
Where she shall yet conceive
Him, morning, noon, and eve;
New Bethlems, and he born
There, evening, noon, and morn—
Bethlem or Nazareth, 65
Men here may draw like breath
More Christ and baffle death;
Who, born so, comes to be
New self and nobler me
In each one and each one 70
More makes, when all is done,
Both God’s and Mary’s Son.
Again, look overhead
How air is azurèd;
O how! nay do but stand 75
Where you can lift your hand
Skywards: rich, rich it laps
Round the four fingergaps.
Yet such a sapphire-shot,
Charged, steepèd sky will not 80
Stain light. Yea, mark you this:
It does no prejudice.
The glass-blue days are those
When every colour glows,
Each shape and shadow shows. 85
Blue be it: this blue heaven
The seven or seven times seven
Hued sunbeam will transmit
Perfect, not alter it.
Or if there does some soft, 90
On things aloof, aloft,
Bloom breathe, that one breath more
Earth is the fairer for.
Whereas did air not make
This bath of blue and slake 95
His fire, the sun would shake,
A blear and blinding ball
With blackness bound, and all
The thick stars round him roll
Flashing like flecks of coal, 100
Quartz-fret, or sparks of salt,
In grimy vasty vault.
So God was god of old:
A mother came to mould
Those limbs like ours which are 105
What must make our daystar
Much dearer to mankind;
Whose glory bare would blind
Or less would win man’s mind.
Through her we may see him 110
Made sweeter, not made dim,
And her hand leaves his light
Sifted to suit our sight.
Be thou then, O thou dear
Mother, my atmosphere; 115
My happier world, wherein
To wend and meet no sin;
Above me, round me lie
Fronting my froward eye
With sweet and scarless sky; 120
Stir in my ears, speak there
Of God’s love, O live air,
Of patience, penance, prayer:
World-mothering air, air wild,
Wound with thee, in thee isled, 125
Fold home, fast fold thy child.
http://www.bartleby.com/122/37.html
Thank you Mimi! I just briefly scanned it and it looks like something I will like.
Nice. I've had an art history course, and a visual arts course. But a lot of fun and something I really enjoyed. It's too bad a lot of times this aspect of education gets ignored while a trying "teach to the test" mentality too often exists in the school systems. [Both public AND private, I might add.]
Esther,
Thank you for Fine Art Friday, it was just wanted I needed to see. Where do you find your pictures to post?
Kathy
So true Karen. My art professor made us love it!
Kathy, I emailed you privately.
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