Dietrich / MicrostoryOfArtDOCUMENTS

MICROSTORY OF ART
ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM

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INDEX OF DOCUMENTS

DOCUMENTS

Giovanni Morelli and the Badrutt’s Palace Hotel Madonna
(Read more: Giovanni Morelli and the Badrutt’s Palace Hotel Madonna)

Brueghel/Tarkovsky Zero Gravity
(Read more: Brueghel/Tarkovsky Zero Gravity)

The Overhead Projector – a Memento Mori (2014)
(Read more: The Overhead Projector – a Memento Mori (2014))

Bonaventura Genelli and Photography (1839)
(Read more: Bonaventura Genelli and Photography (1839))

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Giovanni Morelli and the Badrutt’s Palace Hotel Madonna

As a supplement to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung’s virtual exploration of the Badrutt’s Palace Hotel at St. Moritz (see here: http://www.nzz.ch/panorama/ein-hotel-gibt-seine-geheimnisse-preis-1.18457085), we offer here an seemingly unknown document as to the history of the hotel’s ›Raphael‹ (see here: http://www.nzz.ch/panorama/ist-die-dame-echt-1.18460537). Speaking is the Austrian journalist Sigmund Münz (1859-1934; see: http://www.biographien.ac.at/oebl/oebl_M/Muenz_Sigmund_1859_1934.xml).

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(Picture: badruttspalace.com)

»Damals [August of 1889] machte im Engadin eine Rafael’sche ›Sixtinische Madonna‹ von sich sprechen, die der nun verstorbene Badrutt, Besitzer des ›Hotel Kulm‹ in St. Moritz-Dorf, in Modena aufgetrieben und für einen nicht unbeträchtlichen Preis erstanden. Ich hatte sie gerade am Morgen, Morelli einige Tage früher in der Galerie im Parterre von Kulm gesehen. Badrutt, der findige Doyen unter den Gastwirthen des Engadins – ein kleiner Mann mit einem Silenkopfe, umschleierten Augen, kurzem, struppigem Barte – behauptete, gestützt auf die Autorität eines apokryphen Kunstforschers, er besässe nun die Original-Madonna, die berühmte Dresdner Madonna aber wäre nur eine alte, von Girolamo da Carpi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girolamo_da_Carpi) gemalte Copie. Um dies zu beweisen, öffnete der gute Mann alle Schleusen seiner Beredsamkeit. Er hielt ein colorirtes Abbild des Dresdner Gemäldes in Händen und sprach: ›Vergleichen Sie meine Madonna da mit der Dresdner. Diese hat Füsse wie eine Tiroler Magd, meine Madonna dagegen zierliche, göttliche Füsschen. Meine blickt aus wirklichen Wolken, die Dresdner aus einem Bräu, der eher Schnee als Wolken gleicht. Auf der Dresdner ist der Saum des Kleides der Madonna grob röthlich, auf meiner fein braun; die Vorhänge zur Seite der Mutter Gottes sind dort lichtgrün, hier in dunklem satten Grün gehalten. Die Dresdner Madonna ist auf communem Zeug gemalt, meine auf Damast. Ergo – wer Augen hat, der sehe!‹
Wir [Sigmund Münz and Giovanni Morelli] sprachen auf unserer nächtlichen Wanderung von der Sache. Morelli aber schien mir nicht überzeugt, dass die echte Sixtinische Madonna nicht mehr in Elbe-Athen residire, sondern, nervenschwach geworden, ins Engadin gewandert sei. Er scherzte über den Graubündner Hotelier, der seinen eigenen Keller mit Veltliner Weinen, seine eigene Forellenfischerei, sein eigenes Orchester, seinen eigenen Gott habe und nun auf seine eigene Madonna schwöre.«

(Source: Sigmund Münz, Italienische Reminiscenzen und Profile, Wien 1898, p. 100f.)
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Brueghel/Tarkovsky Zero Gravity

As we all know from Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 movie Solaris (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_%281972_film%29) major works by Flemish painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder) are housed by the library of the space station at the planet of Solaris. But this is not about an outer space supplement for the Pieter Brueghel oeuvre catalogue nor about the cultural references as such within that movie. Is is about something else that relates also to our contemplation of a work by Pieter Brueghel that was stimulated by a looking at a landscape piece by Richard Serra (http://www.seybold.ch/Dietrich/RichardSerra).

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And as the audience of that movie we are warned: a manoeuvre will result in zero gravity for 30 seconds at the station. This results in a remarkable sequence (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcglyhUre4w), but not in an actual looking at Brueghel in a state of weightlessness (this is only what we, as the audience, experience, in case that the looking at people in a zero gravity space, affects our own feeling of space and gravity. Because we see people in a space of zero gravity, and we see also the works by Pieter Brueghel (that probably are there to remind the four seasons, and as such, conditions of living at the planet Earth, but we can also see, or at least imagine, Icarus as being there as well).



(Picture: Solaris DVD)

The two people we see already have looked at Brueghel, and as you can see from the screenshot above, they now look, if looking is the right word, at inner, mental images, being carried away by their thoughts, and haunted, possibly, by thoughts of hopelessness. And as you know the movie, you also know what happens after the thirty seconds (if thirty seconds is the right word here, where time and space might be distorted and reality and dream are melting).
Remarkable are also the several shots of the Return of the Hunters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunters_in_the_Snow) that give us a sense of floating into that winter landscape by Brueghel (and this in 1972, much ahead of our time with mechanical slide show effects, emulating such zooms or moving camera effects as standard features). And we realize that our looking at Brueghel is different from our museum’s view looking at Brueghel down here on Earth. Because the conditions have changed, and we feel space and gravity different (and a thirty seconds zero gravity effect within museums – and without warning – would probably do well down here on earth).
A last word as to the Stanisław Lem novel that Solaris, the 1972 movie and other movies are based upon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_%28novel%29): because this novel has interesting thoughts about the evolution of architecture on planet Earth, from Babylon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon) to the age of the cosmodrome (see for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baikonur_Cosmodrome), and this, if one likes so, again under gravity conditions of outer space.
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The Overhead Projector – a Memento Mori (2014)

What did I learn in school for life? Was it about the Pythagorean theorem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_theorem) or about the concept of osmosis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmosis)? Was it about how people do behave and how they interact? Was it about the observing of people how they were dealing with various technologies (of learning)? Or was it in the end about watching people in their trying to deal with a technological device, a thing called Overhead projector?
By accident I have become a witness, of this rather sad scene: of a whole family of Overhead projectors, disappearing into a somewhere outside our classrooms, reentering, I guess, a chain of recycling of technological devices, because of being hopelessly, hopelessly outdated.
May they rest in peace, with their scrolls of plastic folias, now being overruled by modern beamers and, probably, ubiquitous Powerpoint presentation. But we do remember their sculptural quality. And if I hear that the kids of today are much ahead of their teachers, if it comes to the dealing with contemporary technological devices (they seem to be, from what I hear, much ahead, for example, if it comes to the cutting of movies), there once was a time when mostly teachers knew to operate this thing. This thing called Overhead projector. May it rest in peace.

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The Overhead Projector – a Memento Mori (2014) (picture: DS)

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Bonaventura Genelli and Photography (1839)

By September of 1839 German artist Bonaventura Genelli (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonaventura_Genelli) who lived in Munich was informed: his younger friend, later connoisseur of art Giovanni Morelli (http://www.seybold.ch/Dietrich/ForthcomingGiovanniMorelliAPortrait) who stayed in Paris in 1839, had written – probably quite enthusiastic – about photography. While we do not have this firsthand account from Paris, dating from the very early days of Daguerreotypes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype ; http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=53035), we have nonetheless Genelli’s reply, dating from September 29. And an excerpt of this yet unpublished letter is given here (source: Nachlass Genelli, Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig; Lionel von Donop’s 19th century copies of Genelli’s handwritten letters to Morelli; originals are in a private collection at Bergamo, Italy):

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»Daguerrsche Erfindungen u dem ähnliche werden der wirklichen Kunst nie schaden können, sollten diese auch noch so hoch gesteigert werden. Componiren kann man halt doch nicht durch Maschinen u wenn sie Gottvater selbst ausgehekt hätte! Für die Wissenschaften mögen diese Dinge Gott weiß wozu noch alles von Nutzen sein – auf die bildenden Künste angewendet würde mir ein solch dadurch hervorgebrachtes sogenanntes Kunstwerk den empörenden Eindruck machen wie etwa für die Zuschauer u Schauspieler wenn ein Pudel die Rolle des Mackbeth [sic] übernommen hätte – ob die Copirbruth vielleicht dadurch zu Grunde geht – was liegt daran?«


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