My Favorite Artwork at Piazza di San Marco

Piazza di San Marco in Venice is a marvelous museum itself, featuring valuable historical artifacts and artistic treasures, too numerous to list.

One of my two favorites is the iconic sculpture of "I Tetrarchi (The Tetrarchs)" at the foot of Basilica di San Marco, depicting four ebony colored Tetrarchs huddling together, either in fear, or treacherous congregation. Very intriguing and engaging:





The second favorite sculpture of mine is actually a capital, which has some very peculiar looking heads sticking out of the column, some with the spirits of figureheads on a prow, others look more despondent or stunned.  Those exotic looking heads are full of personalities and though hard to notice in the vast Piazza, are hard to forgot once seen.






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List of My Favorite Artworks in the Museums I've Visited

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Hands and Gestures in Paintings

Recently, I completed a painting of hand study:


Gestures
Oil on Canvas
14" x 11"


This painting was a juxtaposition of hands in various gestures.  They are both simple study of "still life" and snapshots of vivid expressive gestures of hands, a most eloquent parts of our bodies, which can reveal much innermost emotions beyond the words.

This reminded me a fresco painting at Museo di San Marco, Firenze, by the great Renaissance painter, Fra Angelico, Mocking of Christ with the Virgin and Saint Dominic:



By a very slim margin, I didn't include this one in the picks of My Favorite Artworks at Museo di San Marco, Firenze, but it is one of my very favorite works indeed.

What I love in this amazing piece was its sparseness, fitting the Dominican Cloister perfectly.  The color schemes were appealingly subdued and subtle, with incredible beauty in every hue and they blended and contrasted masterfully.  Then, we have the saints in the foreground, each lost in his and her own thoughts and melancholy.  In the back, on the throne, the passive Jesus calmly receiving the abuses from mocking head and hands - instead of conventional mocking crowds, here the very economic usage of the few basic elements was just as overwhelming and even more cruel and terrifying. 

I hope that by putting my painting next to this masterpiece does not make my readers think that I am very presumptuous.  Rather, I am paying my tribute to the great master of the past, and demonstrate that whatever we deem modern or innovative, we can always trace the roots further back. Therefore, be humble.

My Favorite Artworks at Museo di San Marco, Firenze

The most unique venue in Florence, Italy was Museo di San Marco, which located in the Convent of San Marco, an austere yet luminous presence in the colorful city of Firenze (Florence).

This Dominican convent had an ancient history and had its most infamous resident, Fra Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican friar and proto Taliban who galvanized the citizens of Florence by his eloquent preaching on morality and then terrorized them when he pushed further into absolutism.  This museum hosted both his profile portrait by the great Fra Bartolomeo (see below) and the painting of his execution - Execution of Savonarola on the Piazza della Signoria 1498, attributed to Francesco Rosselli.

Its other residents included the famous painter known as Fra Angelico , who had left many wonderful frescoes in the cells of this convent, and even Cosimo Medici had a cell built for himself, where he could stay sometimes.

I was very taken by the simplicity of many Fra Angelico's frescoes on the life cycle of Jesus - austere, cool, meditative and becalming but the most impressive impression made on me was his slightly more colorful one - Annunciation.  The surprised Mary was all humility.  Her deep blue robe formed a solid foundation for for and also framed her and the angel Gabriel, whose fantastic multiple-colored wings, echoing Mary's dress, serving as the other end of framing devices.  The main portion of Gabriel and Mary were in pale pink or cream colors, weightless, emitting lights from within.  The setting, simple yet elegant arched loggia, and a classical style garden, was like the depiction of the Convent of San Marco.  The lines of Fra Angelico were precise and delicate.  His figures and facial features were equally characterized and very beautiful to behold - in a remote, otherworldly way.  We were there to witness a great legend, behind a slightly blurring gauze.

 
Annunciation
Fresco, 230 x 321 cm
Fra Angelico

My second favorite was a most unusual portrait - the profile portrait of the said Fra Savonarola.  His head, largely hooded under dark cowl, except for his sharp eyes, beaked nose and pursed mouth, with a startling determination and authority.  The contrast between light and dark was so strong that it took a strong heart to look at his portrait closely.  Fra Bartolomeo clearly grasped the fanaticism of this unique, notorious figure.


Ritratto di Girolamo Savonarola (Portraitof Girolamo Savonarola),
Fra Bartolomeo, c. 1498.
46.5 x 32.5 cm.


My Favorite Museum Collection Series

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List of My Favorite Artworks in the Museums I've Visited