The Poet of Milan
Gregg Chadwick Il Poeta di Milano (The Poet of Milan) 24"x18" oil on linen 2012
Posts
Beware the Ides of March: Julius Caesar in Art
Gerard Julien/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images A Roman bust thought by some French historians to be the only surviving statue of Julius Caesar that was carved during his lifetime. On display at the Musée Départmental de l’Arles Antique. Julius Caesar's assassination in Joseph Mankiewicz' 1953 film version of Shakespeare's play. The Ides of March by C.B. Cavafy Guard, O my soul, against pomp and glory. And if you cannot curb your ambitions, at least pursue them hesitantly, cautiously. And the higher you go, the more searching and careful you need to be. And when you reach your summit, Caesar at last— when you assume the role of someone that famous— then be especially careful as you go out into the street, a conspicuous man of power with your retinue; and should a certain Artemidoros come up to you out of the crowd, bringing a letter, and say hurriedly: “Read this at once. There are things in it important for you to see,” be sure to stop; be sure to postpone all talk or b...
Warfare, Terror, Murder and da Vinci: Paul Strathern's "The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior"
Leonardo da Vinci is an artist whose name is instantly recognizable but whose artwork can seem so familiar to 21st century eyes that the actual paintings feel lost behind a veil of cultural expectations. Paul Strathern's new book, The Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior: The Intersecting Lives of da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Borgia and the World They Shaped, allows us to see Leonardo as a living man and artist shaped by his time, friendships and experiences. Strathern's book opens with an epigraph spoken by Orson Welles' character, Harry Lime, in The Third Man . From the vantage point of a ferris wheel high above Vienna, Orson Welles surveys the battered post-war city beneath him and says. "In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that pro...