Culture – Slow Lane Musings

The Annunciation message

When we visited Florence last December, we were astonished by the abundant riches of art available in museums and churches. Without a deep knowledge of art history, it was hard for us to truly appreciate what we were exposed to.

Nevertheless, a highlight for us was visiting a curated temporary exhibition, in the Palazzo Strozzi, focusing on the work of Fra Angelico (1395-1455) and his contemporaries. Given that Fra Angelico was a member of a religious order, the exhibition mainly focused on familiar religious themes.

In the courtyard of the Palazzo Strozzi, we were fascinated by a large art installation representing a modern reinterpretation of the Annunciation (the feature image for this post). The artwork, by an American artist known as KAWS, is entitled “The Message” (1974). It was placed there in dialogue with the Fra Angelico exhibition. It made us reflect on how artists view the world.

As a fun exercise, we decided to start looking for Annunciation scenes everywhere we went around the city, in paintings, sculptures, reliquaries, altarpieces and frescoes. Most of the examples we saw were from the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance.

Each time, we examined the depiction of the Archangel and Mary, their clothing, facial expressions and body language, the location of the event, the symbols added to the setting, the presence of other participants, etc. We saw interesting variations in how this very popular scene has been portrayed over time.

Five World Heritage Sites in Barcelona

“Modernista” is Catalonia’s own version of the Art Nouveau architectural movement that swept through Europe between 1880 and 1910. In the city of Barcelona, the movement was energized by the Catalan cultural revival of that period and it reached its peak between 1888 and 1906.

Modernism inspired the design of hundreds of remarkable buildings and sites, interior decorations, sculptures, and streetlights throughout the city and beyond.

The designs integrate metal, concrete, coloured glass, tiles, and mosaics and make generous use of sinuous and arching lines, colours, symbols, and more than a touch of the architects’ playfulness and fantasy. Most importantly, both the interior and exterior forms and decorations take their inspiration from what the architects had observed in the natural world.

This architectural heritage is one of the tourist draws to Barcelona. The brochure describing the Barcelona Modernisme Route lists 115 examples of Modernista architecture in the city. Nine of those places, designed by either Antoni Gaudí or Lluís Domènech i Montaner, have been designated by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites.

We recently visited five of these designated sites. They are all magnets for tourists and, at times, it was difficult to capture images without having a crowd of people taking selfies all around us. Despite this, we are pleased to share some of our moments of wonder with you.

“The Sun” – a poem by Mary Oliver

The video clips used to complement the reading of this beautiful poem contained in the post here were shot in the following locations in Canada: Lac Taylor in Gatineau Park in Quebec, The Ottawa River just east of Ottawa in Ontario, the Upper Canada Migratory Bird Sanctuary in Ontario, and The City of Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories. The background music is “Quiet Time” by David Fesliyan (fesliyan.com).