Hmmmm

I saw this on Apartment Therapy earlier this week and it struck me as an interesting way to frame a photo. I tend to run in the opposite direction when I sense something country-fied is nearby, but this doesn't make me want to run away. Maybe it's my inner miser or just my novelty-seeking self at work here. Got a Mason jar or anything with a wide mouth? Try this and see how it looks.

One last trompe

One last trompe l'oeil that is. On Friday, I showed a couple of photos of Classical Roman decorative painting and then a church in Rome. Let me just state for the record that nowhere on the planet offers such bountiful rewards to a solitary walker than the city of Rome. I will repeat that to anyone who listens (or who doesn't listen) for the rest of my life. Ottorino Respighi captured the exitement and glory of a walk in that city in his first movement from I pini di Roma. Listen to it sometime. It makes me weep like a child. Really. Blubbering hysterics. Anyhow, during another on of my Rome walks I came across the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola. I had no idea what the Church of Ignatius Loyola was until I opened the door and walked in.

Sant'Ignazio is a baroque church that opened its doors in 1650, and was the project of Jesuit architect Andrea Pozzo. In my readings since I walked into that church, I've learned that Sant'Ignazio is considered to be the pinnacle of Baroque painting. And here's why.

Photos cannot come close to capturing the effect of this ceiling. When you stand in the center of the church and look up, this painting completely fills your field of vision, and it's probably 100 feet in the air. You also lose sight completely the fact that this ceiling is flat. It appears to extend upward into infinity. Terms like breathtaking get thrown around pretty loosely, by me particularly; but I never experienced true breathtaking-ness until I saw this. And if that weren't enough, as you look forward and toward the altar, you look up into the dome of the church. 

Or you look up to where a dome ought to be, only it's another, perfectly flat ceiling painted to look like the inside of a dome at dusk. Pozzo completed these paintings more than 325 years ago and his motives and excitement for the subject matter are still palpable, regardless of a viewer's religious inclinations. 

For some reason, the Church of Saint Ignatius doesn't merit a whole lot of mention in the tour guides to Rome, but it affected me more than any other religious building in Rome did, that's for sure. Maybe because I stumbled upon it when I was walking by myself --it felt like my own private find. It's tucked into its own piazza not too far from the Pantheon. Some day when I want to prattle on about exquisite marbles, I'll bore you with some Pantheon photos. Hah!

More Mad Men madness

Here are some more of Dyna Moe's Mad Men illustrations. All hail Dyna Moe for permission to use these images. What cool work and such a cool soul behind them. Check out her Photostream and her collection on Zazzle!

Many are mad for the men

Well it looks as if Mad Men's turning into a cultural touchstone. Maybe it's a society-wide pining for more stable times and maybe it's just a well-written show. Everything about it is perfect, from the sets and costumes to the attitudes and rampant unhappiness. I cannot get enough of it. Clearly, I'm not alone.

At some point in the last week or so, I stumbled upon a brief mention on Apartment Therapy of an artist who goes by the name of Dyna Moe. Dyna Moe is a New York-based illustrator who creates a new piece every week based on that weeks' episode of Mad Men. She then sells them through Zazzle. They're great illustrations and a pretty cool way to capture some of that Mad Men allure. You can also check out her whole collection of Mad Men and other work at her Flickr Photostream. Go ahead, send some traffic Dyna Moe's way. She deserves it. Check it out.

Mad for the men

Are you watching Mad Men on AMC? If not why not? Seriously, Mad Men is the best thing I've seen on TV since... well, ever.