Saving His Skin

I took this photo several years ago when I led a Watertown High School student trip to Rome. We had a free afternoon and one of my students and I made the trip to the church of San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome. This church is remarkable in many ways but I was captured by this statue of St. Bartholomew, carved in 1712 by Pierre Legros.In brief, Bartholomew was martyred by being skinned alive. But during the Second Coming, he is resurrected with a new skin. The artistic version of this story that I am most familiar with is in the Sistine Chapel in Michelangelo's brilliant Last Judgement of Christ. In that version, too, he is holding both his old skin and the knife that was used to flay him. In Michelangelo's version, some art historians say that the face on the old skin is the face of the artist.I don't know whose face is on the sculpted version I am showing here[smugbuy gallery="http://scottshephardphoto.smugmug.com/Fine-Art-Photography/Fine-Art/21122937_fHW9Lh"]

The Family

My photography students and I were at Holy Name Catholic Church this afternoon looking for good photos. After they took off to various places in the church, I looked around the room I was in and this was the first photo I took.This is a smaller copy of a bronze version of this statue that graces a small outside seating area near the church. The light in the room I was perfect for taking a portrait. In this case, my subject were made of stone.I don't know the name of this work of art or who created it but I will post both when I know.

The Little Angel - Another View

I have posted this angel before but came across a series of photos I had taken in 2002. So I thought I'd posted a different point of view.

Grief

I have 53,319 photos in my primary digital photo library. These are photos I have taken between 2002 and the present. I don't expect you to be impressed with this number - I'm not sure I am. I think many of these photos should be discarded.But, because I run out of things to post here, I am happy I have so many photos because it allows me to "throw a dart" when I'm stymied. Today, I randomly picked photos from May, 2009, and this one jumped out at me. It was taken at the amazing Mirogoj cemetery in Zabreb, Croatia. I wish I could tell you more about this monument but I can't.I can tell you that I like the woman's gentle demeanor and that I also like the great bokeh in the backround. Finally, I like the fact that the background is in color and that the woman seems to be in tones of sepia, which seems appropriate for a stoney figure mourning in a graveyard.

Old Stone Faces

There is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne entitled "The Great Stone Face" which I remember being assigned by a teacher who scared me more than any teacher I ever had. As I remember her, she generally wore an expression of menace and she never smiled. In my mind, she was the real "Stone Face," though she could have also been a double for the Wicked Witch of the North in The Wizard of Oz.Of course all of this has nothing to do with this photo, though there are faces portrayed in stone. Where is this? Venice. Who are these people? If I had been listening to our tour guide instead of taking photos, I might know. But I do know that all of these stoney people look friendlier than my scary teacher.

Outreach

I suppose you could look at many things in this photo: the random, clinging vines, the clutter of leaves or the contrast between the smooth, white sculpture and implied, dark decay of a hospital courtyard in lat fall. But I look at Jesus' hands and go looking to see how other artists depict the hands of Christ. One thing is certain: you won't find Jesus' hands in his pockets. (Check out a detail from the Michelangelo's Pieta.)

03-26-10 Cool Cat

This is my third post in six days from the Norton Simon Museum of Art in Pasadena. The museum was great but the sculpture garden was beautiful - espcially on a spring day in California. The bronze cat is a sculpture but the white trees also are a strong sculptural element in the garden.

Canon 5DII 1/100s f/4.5 ISO200 65mm

02-04-10 He Has Horns!

This is Michelangelo's "Moses," and it is housed in one of the most unassuming places any great work art resides - the Church of St. Peter in Chains in Rome. Michelangelo was commissioned to do Pope Julius II's tomb and Moses was to be one of 50 sculptures to decorate the tomb. Humility? I don't think so.

The Pope ran out of money and the tomb was scaled back. But we got "Moses" out of the deal. Why the horns? Well, one account I've read says that the horns come from a mistranslation of the Old Testament. The Hebrew should have read "rays of light," not "horns."

Whenever I see a Michelangelo sculpture, I am struck first by how amazingly life-like the cold stone is. But I am also in awe of the physical feat it must have been for Michelangelo to wrest the figures from the stubborn Carerra marble.

10-29-09 The Big, Blue Bear

I am in Denver this week and we are being treated to the first major snow storm of the season - 8" so far. But it is supposed to be sunny tomorrow, when I fly out.

This is the big bear sculpture that stares into the lobby of the Denver Convention Center. I'll have to admit that it wasn't the best day for street photography, with snow coming down in big chunks. But sometimes the worse weather conditions make for unique photos.

Click here to get a view from the inside.

08-25-09 We've Got Giant Cowboys. . .

By Scott Shephard

View fullsize

. . . but in eastern European countries, such as Hungary, they had giant Communists. Marx, Engels, Lenin, happy workers - you name it, and they probably had a giant statue for it.

Many of you may remember that when Sadam fell from power, one of the first things that happened is that the giant statues and pictures of Sadam were toppled and destroyed. That also happened in eastern Europe when communism fell. But in Budapest, someone had the foresight to save the statues and many are now housed in a park on the outskirts of Budapest called "Statue Park." In all of my European travels, our visit to this park is one of the more memorable experiences.

The title of this blog entry is a reference to the fact that in our community, the most monumental art we have are two identical statues of cowboys, intended to draw attention to the convenience stores they stand next to. I was trying to imagine why anyone might topple them. A revolt against capitalism? Or overpriced necessities like bread or milk? Or maybe bad art? Who knows. . . ?

Canon 5D 1/320s f/13.0 ISO250 40mm Some rights reserved under Creative Commons Copyright