#;;muse theme: jacopo

[thesongofthegreens]

MULTI-MUSE

MEDICI

Since I've been watching Medici again, I have muse for both Francesco de Pazzi and Lorenzo de Medici. I love both of them very much and would love to explore both sides of the betrayal and any AUs for both of them. I also have been wanting to do sibling/family centered/found family dynamics, as those are some of the major sources of happiness and angst in this show. Since this will be a roleplay centered in the 15th century and in Florence, Italy, there will be religious themes or heavy mentions of the Catholic church, as this is a main feature within the show.

Partners that I am looking for in a Lorenzo de Medici roleplay: Clarice de Orsini, Lucrezia Donati, Giuliano de Medici, Bianca de Medici, Sandro Botticelli, Piero de Medici, Francesco de Pazzi, Bruno Bernadi.

Partners that I am looking for in a Francesco de Pazzi roleplay: Lorenzo de Medici, Giuliano de Medici, Clarice de Medici, Jacopo de Pazzi, Guglielmo de Pazzi, Novella Foscari. TRIGGER WARNINGS: Dark themes, violence, and gore. RESTRICTIONS: I will not do incest of any kind, nor will I do any graphic depictions of sexual assault of any kind. There are no exceptions to either of these rules.

[alexandriteobscuraarchive]

@avaliantqueen / @garnetwrites

@domina-noctisim

Sing To Me – MISSIO Death Stranding

[burlveneer-music]

SKE - Insolubilia - prog rock with ALL the trappings; “luxury prog” if you will

SKE is the "solo" project of Paolo "SKE" Botta, italian keyboards player who also plays in many bands, most notably Yugen and Not a Good Sign. In 2011 the debut album "1000 Autunni" was released on AltrOck/Fading Records, and features mostly Yugen musicians. The style can be described as 70s Symphonic Prog meets Avant/RIO and Canterbury. The album received great critical acclaim and went quickly out of print, to be eventually reprinted in 2018 as "1001 Autunni", with an additional live CD.

The new studio album "Insolubilia" is still produced by Marcello Marinone. It is a dense and heavily layered album, inspired by brain teasers and paradoxes. Despite this, it has a distinctive melodic approach that should help the listener to avoid “getting lost” into the sonic labyrinth. With echoes by bands such as Gentle Giant, Änglagård, Universe Zero or JLF Ledesma among others, the album main opus “Insolubilia” is a 5 part variation of several recurring themes, that benefits of a very extensive musical palette, provided by 25 musicians. Paolo Botta (Not a Good Sign, Yugen) - Keyboards, Composition Fabio Pignatelli (Goblin) - Bass Luca Calabrese (Isildurs Bane) - Pocket Trumpet Lars Fredrik Frøislie (Wobbler) - Harpsichord Keith Macksoud (Present) - Bass Tommaso Leddi (Stormy Six) - Mandolin Nicolas Nikolopoulos (Ciccada) - Flute Evangelia Kozoni (Ciccada) - Voice Vitaly Appow (Rational Diet, Five Storey Ensamble) - Bassoon Simen Ådnøy Ellingsen (Shamblemaths) - Saxophones Alessandro Cassani (Not a Good Sign) - Bass Martino Malacrida (Not a Good Sign) - Drums Francesco Zago (Yugen) - Guitars Maurizio Fasoli (Yugen) - Grand Piano Valerio Cipollone (Yugen) - Clarinets Elia Leon Mariani (Yugen) - Violin Jacopo Costa (Loomings, Yugen) - Vibraphone/Marimba/Xylophone/Glockenspiel/Cymbalum Maria Denami (Loomings) - Voice Massimo Giuntoli (Hobo) - Harmonium Pierre Wawrzyniak (Camembert, Oiapok) - Bass Mélanie Gerber (Camembert, Oiapok) - Voice Guillaume Gravelin (Camembert, Oiapok) - Harp Pietro Bertoni (FEM) - Trombone/Euphonium Thea Ellingsen Grant (Juno) - Voice Tiziana Azzone (Il Giardino delle Muse) - Theorbo

[yasuda-yoshiya]

Now that I think about it, what do you think The Maid thought and felt about the three men? Like I said before, I think she was jealous of them, and might’ve even subconsciously took pleasure in their misfortune, even as she sincerely wished for the WHG to find happiness with them. She does frame them as tragically flawed and as rather terrible people, like she dehumanises them and doesn’t think of them as people with agency because of the curse. Am I bothering you with all these questions?

Yeah, I think that’s probably true! Again, the game doesn’t really explicitly go into it or anything, but I do think you can certainly read a sort of jealousy into the Maid’s framing of the three men to the WHG (”these guys all suck, ditch them and stay with me instead”), even if it’s obviously very repressed. I agree that the Maid sort of dehumanises them in the same way that she dehumanises basically everyone (including herself), by turning them into tragically doomed protagonists defined by their respective fatal flaws. Framing them that way allows her to look back on them with a kind of distant pity and sympathy that probably helps to repress any more difficult emotions she might feel about her respective relationships with them, or about the WHG choosing them over her; it puts her in a position of being “above” them, in a sense. It also seemed to me that the Maid personally identified with and used parts of their stories as outlets to talk about and reflect on issues that were important to her personally, without her having to take ownership of them herself (so her complex feelings about Bestia’s attempts to retreat into a fictional narrative and escape his humanity become a casually detached sort of musing on someone else’s story - “Hmm, I wonder if you could say he really was a beast?” - rather than something that betrays anything about her own identification with him).

Going into each of the three men individually, let’s see... I think the Maid doesn’t really have any particularly strong feelings about Mell, aside from a sort of disdain for his shallowness and his lack of awareness of how fortunate and privileged he is (she makes a lot of very barbed comments to that effect in door 1, which I very much enjoyed). She does make a point of explicitly saying she sides with him over Nellie during their big fallout at the theatre, which I found interesting - I expect that’s probably mostly down to her resenting Nellie being cruel to the WHG, but I could also see Nellie’s desperate clinginess and denial of the fact that Mell doesn’t really love her hitting a sore spot for the Maid too, since it probably reminds her of the things she dislikes and represses about herself. Her telling of Mell and Nellie’s story focuses a lot on the theme of childhood happiness inevitably being lost, which obviously speaks heavily to Giselle’s issues.

Yukimasa is particularly interesting to me, because I think the Maid shows a lot of sympathy for him and seems to genuinely wish for his happiness in a way she doesn’t so much for the others; there’s a persistent undercurrent of her saying things like “I had truly hoped he could find happiness like this, but in the end...” and generally seeming very actively invested in his efforts to build a new self-contained reality with the WHG, which I think speaks to her personally identifying with what he was doing there. (Well, there’s also the fact that the Maid is the one who originally took him in and taught him to speak like a human, so she probably feels a kind of maternal affection from those days as well, even after he got increasingly messed up.) Her deliberately biasing the story towards his perspective by portraying him as a literal beast and glossing over the impact of his actions on others (Pauline and Javi’s stories were explicitly not part of the Maid’s telling, and something Michel had to hack his way into himself) was very interesting to me; she spends a lot of time musing over the question of whether he truly was a human or a beast, and asking Michel if he can understand and sympathise with Bestia’s feelings, in a way that I felt betrayed a sort of insecurity about herself as well.

As for Jacopo...well, as the Maid pretty much says herself in door 3, I think she originally regarded him as a very unlikable man but came to better understand his true nature as time went on. There’s a canon short story about them that describes them coming to a sort of understanding in the years after the WHG left; I got the impression that the Maid did get fairly invested in him in the end, though of course she’s also very well practiced at detaching from such things by that point as well. And writing this out just makes me all the more mad about how little reaction Giselle gets to have to the past versions of Yukimasa and Jacopo in door 8 despite having such interesting relationships with both of them, but for some reason they just wanted Giselle to stop being a character partway through and now we all have to deal with that, unfortunately!

[alexandriteobscuraarchive]

@guardianofyesod

[afishtrap]

Through graphic and literary sources created to record and commemorate European court festivals during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, we can follow how was the topos of the sea at the time formed, used and disseminated in celebrations at royal courts. This subject, derived from the ancient sea thiasos but with intermittent appearances during the Middle Ages, starts to be retrieved accurately at the beginning of the Renaissance due to the study of Greco-Roman sarcophagi. It is very likely that one of its first appearances in court festivals is related to the disembarkations that took place in the main harbors. Though in a fragmentary way, the Medici family used this iconography in association with princely power, with one of its first documented appearances being one intermezzo of Il Commodo (1539). The musical image of the sea spread throughout the European territory due to the Medici's marriage policy with the major monarchies of the Early Modern Period such as the Spanish Habsburgs and the Valois. It was the Valois who, from Catherine de'Medici's patronage, integrated all these elements together as an allegory of monarchical power, turning it into an essential aspect of their political programs.

Candela Perpiñá García and Desirée Juliana Colomer. "The Musical Image of the Sea in the European Court Festivals During the Sixteenth andSeventeenth Centuries." Music in Art, Vol. 37, No. 1/2, The Courts in Europe: Music Iconography and Princely Power (Spring—Fall 2012), pp. 121-138.

It was clear for the spectators that this apparently innocent dramatic musical performance evoked Leo nora's journey from Naples to Pisa to meet Cosimo and become the new Duchess of Florence. She was osten tatiously welcomed at the Livorno port and treated like a queen since these pageantries were primarily a royal prerogative.13 The Medici's interest in theatrically recalling this event is twofold: to show their intentions concerning the Livorno port and to expose their desire to establish themselves as a dynasty. The capacity to evoke the magnificences of royal disembarks, and hence the dynastic power, ensured the success of the musical sea images in court festivities. Unfortunately, there are few representations of this disembarks and most of them pertain to the seventeenth century. One of the best examples is the Disembarkation of Maria de' Medici at the Port of Marseilles painted by Pieter Paul Rubens (1622-1625, Paris, Musée du Louvre). This marine iconography spread through the European court festivals due to the Medici's marriage policy that led them to establish relations with important monarchies like the Habsburg and the Valois. At first, the Medici's political interests favored a union with the Habsburg until the death of Francesco I in 1587. It was then when Ferdinando radically switched his preference towards the Valois.14

The musical image of the sea was greatly developed on account of the festivals hosted by the Medici family during the entire sixteenth century, incorporated in increasingly complex visual programs. The marine thiasos produced a series of themes that were constantly repeated in these celebrations and diffused beyond Italian territory. A clear example are the etchings made by Raffaello Gualterotti describing the Sbarra brought to stage on 14 October 1579 at the Palazzo Pitti in honor of the wedding ceremonies between Francesco I de' Medici and the Venetian Bianca Capello. The Sbarra, a tournament that allowed the participants to assume allegorical roles, was popular among the main men of the court who, characterized as knights, took the opportunity to boast themselves. The written description and prints contained in the festival books demon strate the abundant presence of marine iconography associated with the city of Venice, city where the Medici hoped to extend their influence.13 The main themes were: the shell [fig. 2],16 the whale or giant dolphin and the triumph of Neptune.17 This iconography was accompanied by trumpet-playing tritons, goddesses and nymphs from the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian seas who sang and played their instruments in honor of the grand dukes. The eagerness to relate the couple with an aquatic element seems evident. At a certain point of the representation, Apollo appeared and named Bianca "sole child of the Adriatic Sea" and the grand dukes "gods of the Arno river".18 The Medici's aspirations over the Venetian Republic were materialized when personifications of both seas appeared on stage escorted by two lions holding the symbols of Venice and the Medici, which were ridden by Tuscany and Veneto regions. Later on, the Adriatic Sea returned to the stage, this time characterized as a young wife richly adorned, singing and praising the Duchess for her skillfulness in joining these "two lions and two seas".19 In 1589, the sea musical image reappeared in one of the festivals held to celebrate yet another Medici wedding. This time, the bride and groom were Christine de Lorraine, granddaughter of Catherine de' Medici queen of France, and Ferdinando de' Medici. The play La Pellegrina by Girolamo Bargagli was performed in their honor with a series of magnificent intermezzi. The verses written by Ottavio Rinuccini and Strozzi, whereas the music was composed by Cristofano Malvezzi, Peri, Giulio Caccini, Luca Marenzio, Emilio de' Cavalieri and Giovanni de' Bardi (leader of the Florentine Camerata). The stage design was made by Bernardo Buontalenti.21 This grandiose show wished to the political alliance between the Medici and the Valois.22 According to the detailed description offered the festival book, the famous soprano Vittoria Archelei23 performed in the fifth intermezzo as the sea Amphitrite, singing and strumming the lute, accompanied by tritons blowing their conch shells and singing and playing "viole e lire arciviolate" [fig. 3],24 In this way, Amphitrite and her entourage respects to the grand dukes, reassuring them a prolific lineage. Immediately after, Jacopo Peri interpreted the story of Arion, a citharist who threw himself into the sea and was saved by a dolphin thanks to the of his music.25 Just as it had occurred in 1579, the aquatic element represented the merger between noble families since the city decorations depicted the confluence of the Arno river in Florence Marseille river as an emblem of the marriage between Ferdinand and Christine.

[...]

The union of the Medici with the Valois through the marriage of Catherine de' Medici and Henry II of France in 1533, surely catalyzed the presence of this iconography in French court festivals. It is well known that in 1550, by reason of the royal entry of King Henry II into Rouen, a naumachia was held on the Seine river. But before the battle began, Neptune appeared followed by a retinue of sea deities. Neptune stood before the king, recited a poem in his honor and handed him his golden trident rendering him his power over the sea. Subsequently, other wonders joined the performance such as Arion strumming a lute and riding a dolphin and a group of whales carrying tritons "iouoyent par mélodieux accord, de trompes, buccines, & cornetz".31 These were joined by four more tritons who announced the entrance of Neptune's triumphal chariot with "trompes torses, & moullées en forme de gros viguotz de mer".32 In fact, all the images made to record the event represent the sea god over the Seine waters surrounded by an entourage of marine deities blowing big aerophones in an attempt to visually and musically project his power over the sea [fig. 6].33 This spectacular performance proves that the reinterpretations of the marine thiasos were already quite extended throughout Europe. The real novelty is found in the treatment it acquired with the Valois. For Luisa Capodieci, the marine thiasos of Rouen recreated the Golden Age of cosmic resonances that was emerging under the monarch's reign.34 Allusions to the river as a celestial ocean were common. Maybe the most evident of these allusions is the appearance of three musical mermaids identified by their first names — Ligia, Par thenope and Leucosia — daughters of the muse Calliope and beautiful in their perfection, who strummed "de leurs doulsaines, d'une si doulce harmonie q'elles esmouuoient les coeurs assopis d'ennuy, à toute alaigre lyesse".35 The festival book talks extensively on the harmonious attributes of their chords and describes how, when passing under the bridge, these were wonderfully amplified by the effect of reverberation. As aptly pointed out by Capodieci, these marvelous creatures hardly resemble Homer's evil seductresses and on the contrary resemble Plato's heavenly mermaids, generators of cosmic harmony (Republic X, 616c-617b). These celestial mermaids reappeared in 1589 at the Medici theatrical shows, specifically in the first intermezzo of La Pellegrina, although without the typical fish tails of the Tritonesses.36

[lavotha]

The Nouveau Musee National de Monaco honors legendary painter

The Nouveau Musee National de Monaco (NMNM) hosted a Press Conference yesterday, lead by the passionate and enthusiastic curator Cristiano Raimondi, who unveiled the very first ambitious retrospective in a public institution outside Brazil, of legendary painter Alfredo Volpi.(Photo insert: Cristiano Raymondi @CelinaLafuentedeLavotha)

From February 9 through May 20, 2018, at Villa Paloma (56 Bv du Jardin Exotique in Monaco), this colorful and highly poetic exposition is open to the public, who will be able to admire the prolific work of this major Brazilian artist born in Lucca (Italy) in 1896 and who moved with his family to São Paulo’s when he was only 2 years old, and where he stayed all through his modest and simple life, until he passed away in 1988. As immigrants Volpi and his family settled in an impoverished  Italian neighborhood of Sao Paulo, so he never lost his Tuscan accent, but his heart beat at the rhythm of Brazil, the country that welcomed and veneers him.

This exhibition is made possible thanks to the close collaboration of Pedro Mastrobuono, President of the Institute of Modern Art Alfredo Volpi. His father, Marco Antonio Mastrobuono, was an intimate friend of Alfredo Volpi in his most productive era. His passion for the work of the artist is well known in the art world and is the engine behind an incredible collection. Marco Antonio’s love of painting was passed to his children, and Pedro followed in his footsteps managing the Mastrobuono Collection. Through this comprehensive exhibition the NMNM succeeds in giving Alfredo Volpi the international recognition he deserves.

Alfredo Volpi and Marco Antonio Mastrobuono at the artist’s atelier @DASartes

Pedro Machado Mastrobuono (son of Marco), President of the Insitute of Modern Art Alfredo Volpi @CelinaLafuentedeLavotha

Alfredo Volpi at work @NMNM

An artist of modest life who became a legend

Alfredo Volpi trained as a woodcarver and bookbinder from an early age and later began working as a commercial artist, assisting a wall painter and decorating the houses of the wealthy families of São Paulo. This way he learned the finest techniques, while earning money to support himself and develop his artistic skills, away from academic guidelines and rules, thus enhancing his own imagination.

It was only during Volpi’s last decade of his life that he became aware of the important recognition avid collectors gave to his work, as it happens with many artists whose works are not noticed and valued in their time, only to become famous after their death. No one is a prophet in their own land, but Volpi is now the most beloved Brazilian artist of the 20th century, with collectors paying really high prices for his coveted masterpieces, even if he remained little known outside Latin America until now. Volpi turned into a legend in Brazil, remaining as an isolated figure midway between modernism, concrete and neo-concrete movements in that country. His unique and universal language must be considered a collective cultural and visual heritage, another positive example in the history of immigration.

Despite the great success that he attained over last three decades of his life, the story of Volpi is one of a simple, reserved man devoted entirely to his work, and one who never forgot his humble origins. A man who every day, until the age of 88, would build his own frames and stretch the linen over them for his paintings, meticulously preparing the pigments and earths to create the magic of color. What today seems incredible is that so few people in Europe and the US know anything about his life and achievements: his works have never been exhibited institutionally as solo shows in Europe, except for his presence as an invited artist at the Venice Biennale of 1952 and 1964 or a handful of commercial exhibitions.

Volpi paints Volpi – The Flag Painter

It was Willys de Castro who said: “Volpi paints Volpi”, recognizing the potential of the modernity of popular art and creating a unique synthesis between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art, and between fine and naïve art. Popular art allowed Volpi to find a timeless and universal shape, far from European transcendent rationality and North American empirics.

As a byproduct of his progressively geometric configurations during the 40’s and 50’s, Volpi distanced himself from landscape in favor of formalism, so after a decade of facades, the bandeirinhas (small flags typical of popular festive motifs) inundated his paintings what deserved him the name of the “Flag painter”.

Alfredo Volpi, No title, 1970, Tempera on Canvas, Private collection SP @CelinaLafuentedeLavotha

Alfredo Volpi, No title, 1970, Tempera on Canvas, Private collection SP @CelinaLafuentedeLavotha

Alfredo Volpi, No title, 1960, Tempera on Canvas, Mastrobuono collection SP @CelinaLafuentedeLavotha

A voyage through the decades & Volpi’s source of inspiration

The NMNM is proud to present this retrospective of 70 works of art: from the first oil on canvas (country or urban landscapes of the 30s and 40s) up to works from the 50s, 60s and 70s with the artist new palette of colors and pictorial techniques. The exhibition backtracks Volpi’s professional life, from his early oil paintings of landscapes and cityscapes in the 40s, to his works during the following decades in which the same subjects evolve into colorful geometric configurations. This autodidact painter transfers onto the canvas his imaginary prototypes of buildings façades and festive banners, with a humble and poetic formula that allows him to make unlimited color variations on the same subject.

1940’s

Alfredo Volpi, Facades, end 1940 Tempera on canvas @CelinaLafuentedeLavotha

Alfredo Volpi, No title, circa 1948, Tempera on canvas, Collection Mastrobuono, Sao Paulo @CelinaLafuentedeLavotha

1950’s

Alfredo Volpi, No title, circa 1954, Tempera on canvas, Collection Mastrobuono, Sao Paulo @CelinaLafuentedeLavotha

Alfredo Volpi, No title, mid 1950’s, Tempera on Canvas, Mastrobuono Collection SP @CelinaLafuentedeLavotha

Alfredo Volpi, No title, end 1950’s, Tempera on Canvas, Collection Marcos Ribeiro Simon, SP @CelinaLafuentedeLavotha

Alfredo Volpi, No title, 1953, Tempera on Canvas, Private collection SP @CelinaLafuentedeLavotha

1960’s

Alfredo Volpi, No title, 1962, Tempera on Canvas, Mastrobuono collection SP @CelinaLafuentedeLavotha (2)

Alfredo Volpi, No title, 1960’s, Tempera on canvas, Mastrobuono Collection, SP @CelinaLafuentedeLavotha

Alfredo Volpi, No title, 1960’s, Tempera on Canvas, Private collection SP @CelinaLafuentedeLavotha

Alfredo Volpi, No title, ca. 1960, Tempera on Canvas, Mastrobuono Collection, SP @CelinaLafuentedeLavotha

Alfredo Volpi, No Title, end 1960’s, Temepra on canvas, Private Collection SP @CelinaLafuentedeLavotha

1970’s

Alfredo Volpi, No title, 1970’s, Tempera on Canvas, Private collection SP @CelinaLafuentedeLavotha copy

Alfredo Volpi, No title, 1970’s, Tempera on Canvas, Private collection SP @CelinaLafuentedeLavotha

Alfredo Volpi, No title, mid 1970’s, Tempera on Canvas, Private collection SP @CelinaLafuentedeLavotha.

Volpi was an independent artist, whose fascination for the Italian early Renaissance, for Matisse, Morandi and the sphere of popular culture led him to win the Best National Prize at the 2nd São Paolo Biennale with ‘Di Cavalcanti’, and intrigued the celebrated English critic Herbert Read, who described him as an artist “… aware of the general movement, but who created something contemporary with an indigenous theme: the shapes and colors of Brazilian modern architecture.” (Photo insert: Announcement of winners of the II Bienal de Sao Paulo @NMNM)

By the end of the ’40s, cityscapes and seascapes that he had started depicting in the 1910s had developed into drawings of the front of buildings and series of festive banners, being inspired by the working class area around him, that served him as real life model and muse. Experience and observation are the most important aspects of the creative process: a direct experience transposed through the sole use of memory of the pictorial space.

Volpi was always unconcerned about academic methodology and doctrines, detached from the cutting edge of his time. He was probably influenced by friends who were celebrated artists like Emygdio de Souza and Ernesto de Fiori influencing him to adopt a certain modernist style, as well as his participation in the Santa Helena artists’ group, but it was his direct experience of the works of other great European artists exhibited in Brazil throughout the ’40s that ended up becoming an incenting for his formal solutions and space organization.

During the ’40s, from Paul Cezanne to Henri Matisse, from Mario Sironi and Carlo Carrà to Giorgio Morandi, Alfredo Volpi would learn how to remodel the pictorial space, and as Lorenzo Mammi wrote, “those new poetic coordinates oblige Volpi to modify his media. The transition from oil to tempera allows the movement of the brushstroke to be now a visible and constitutive element of his paintings, granting at the same time the absolute value of the color independently from the light and texture; in other words, it allows conciliating Morandi with Matisse.”

Exhibition’s catalogue

A catalogue co-published by Capivara Editora and Mousse Publishing gathering texts from Lorenzo Mammi, Jacopo Crivelli Visconti, Cristiano Raimondi will be released around the end of April in French and English.

Today’s Quote

“Creativity takes courage.” Henri Matisse

Brazilian artist Volpi first retrospective in Monaco brings explosion of color and poetry to the white walls of Villa Paloma The Nouveau Musee National de Monaco honors legendary painter The Nouveau Musee National de Monaco (NMNM) hosted a Press Conference yesterday, lead by the passionate and enthusiastic curator Cristiano Raimondi, who unveiled the very first ambitious retrospective in a public institution outside Brazil, of legendary painter…