Pendant from a rosary in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ivory, silver and silver gilt. German, circa 1500-1525. Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917
” He had learned how to cope with most of the tricks his mind saw fit to play upon the susceptible flesh of an aging body which more and more reminded him of a time bomb, set to explode at a certain moment, and no way to pull the fuse. Each second brought him closer to the end which would be, he both feared and hoped, nothing. Hoped because nothing is no thing and not bad. Feared because no thing is not good. And so, wanting an alternative, wanting at heart something human and finite, his once desultory search for reassurance had become obsessive. Yet none of the culture’s familiar anodynes would do. Christianity had been ruined for him by Baptist preachers and Jesuit politicians. Attempts to contemplate ‘Om’ had failed; he was no Brahman. He studied his beloved Plato, but found little consolation. Socrates’ argument on the nature and continuance of the soul struck him as peculiarly tinny. He himself could have argued the case better, for a fee. He much preferred the bleakness of Aeschylus. ‘Take heart, suffering when it climbs highest lasts but a little time.’ That was acceptable. Since happiness lasts such a notoriously short time, its shadow, pain must be brief. But once the suffering was done, what then? ‘Men search out God and searching find him.’ Here the cold vision of Aschylus had failed. Having glimpsed the pit, the poet drew back, arguing that the journey itself was the answer. If it is, I am nearly done, and have found the answer without knowing it, which is useless. He turned from the contemplation of the rain and nothing, to life and politics, his ancient sounding board” —From the novel “Washington, D.C.” by Gore Vidal
OF HUMAN BONDAGE…
This is not my photo. I cannot find a credit. It was collected from the web by a friend and sent to me. I claim no rights to its ownership.
John Singer Sargent, Apollo and The Muses
Hyperion knew he was exhausted, but his Muse was niggling subliminally somewhere in the deep subconscious areas of his creativity, insistant on being heard. Strange how she always visited when he was so tired. Fatigued though he was, words and phrases kept throwing themselves at him, not yet in any cogent form, urging him plaintively, fervently to set them down before they vanished in an evanescent diaspora. He resented their demand, but knew he must respond- allow them up to have their say- or risk the Muses flight. She was quixotic and mercurial; a demanding fickle bird that flew on gaudy plumes to perch upon his mind, then just as quick fly off again.
Quotidian dullard through most of the day, when she arrived Hyperion changed. His mind began to focus, to narrow itself down to singularity of thought. His whole psychological demeanor brightened as if a glaring light were shown upon the thing that must be said. Then he existed entirely within his brain, while all the outside world stood still. Hours passed while the millstone of hard responsibilities sank in other depths without him.
It was a curious thing, her gibbering. He had often heard her exhortations as an actual voice within his head: audible, an adamant, speaking entity, schizophrenic and clamorous, entirely separate from his own internal dialogue. In truest character she was a sesquipedalian- arrantly, arrogantly ostentatious in her choice of words. Clearly she liked the sound of her own voice. From the Olympian heights of her very operatic stage, Apollo’s blazing light bathed her every utterance, punctuated by the occasional bolt of lightening cast from the hand of Zeus. She liked to sing bel canto and in fulgent voice while all around her she only ever heard the chorus sing kumbaya.
For the most part she spoke the truth to him it seemed. Sometimes though she outright lied, told Hyperion things that were not true. She had gotten him in trouble many times before, causing him to say things he often regretted at a later date. But in honor of her capricious nature- her dazzling flattery- he let them stand, for fear she would desert him never to return. She made her own truths, mutable creature that she was, and what she said was truth when it was said. She was like the Sirens- seductive, irresistibly alluring, and overly demanding of respect. Like a jealous god, she constantly reminded Hyperion that she had chosen him, not he her, and obsequious communion with her must strictly be observed. She must be cosseted, like a temperamental queen who stands too proudly upon her elevated dignity.
So once again, like Odysseus sailing home exhausted from his fabled adventures, Hyperion began to lash himself, ears unstopped, to the mast of the barque of his imagination- hoping to hear what only the gods may hear without going mad. How could he not listen to her siren-call?
Why would he not listen if he could?
Hers was the voice of all creation: implacable, inexorable, exhausting, restorative.
Perhaps the exhaustion was the incense that invoked the presence of the Muse, the key to the lid of a verbal Pandora’s box. Exhaustion be damned, the Muse was raving now. Weary with inspiration, Hyperion reached for his lap-top, opened up the screen and began to give her voice the keys.
JANUARY 8TH, FEAST DAY OF OUR LADY OF PROMPT SUCCOR
Our Lady of Prompt Succor is the name given by the Ursuline Nuns of New Orleans and the Roman Catholic Church to the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is the patron saint of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana. The statue pictured here was originally located in the Old Ursuline Convent in the French Quarter of New Orleans.
There are two miracles attributed to Our Lady of Prompt Succor. The first miracle occurred during the great fire which ravaged the French Quarter on Good Friday in 1788. Eight hundred and eighty five of the eleven hundred buildings then in existence in the city of New Orleans were completely destroyed by this disastrous fire which started in the home of the Spanish army treasurer Don Vincent Jose Nunez. Fueled by an intense wind blowing from the southeast, the mostly wooden structures of the French Quarter were quickly devastated In the short span of 5 hours. As the blaze approached the Ursuline convent, the nuns began to pray before a small statue of the Virgin, begging her to aid and protect them with the prayer, “Our Lady of Prompt Succor, we are lost unless you hasten to our aid!”. According to church historians, the winds immediately shifted away from the convent, sparing it and the nuns from certain immolation. The Old Ursuline Convent still stands today at the corner of Ursuline and Chartres in the Quarter. It is the only remaining French Colonial building in the United States.
The second miracle attributed to Our Lady of Prompt Succor occurred on the day of the Battle of New Orleans, January 8th, 1815. The Battle of New Orleans was the last major battle of the War of 1812, and was fought under the leadership of Major General Andrew Jackson. The battle was fought against the army of Great Britain to protect and defend the city of New Orleans and the immense land mass which the United States had acquired from Napoleonic France in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. On the eve of the battle the nuns of the Ursuline Convent and many of the citizens of New Orleans gathered in the convent chapel before the statue of the Virgin and prayed all night and throughout the day of the battle. A solemn mass of intercession was in progress when at the very moment of the elevation of the Host, a courrier burst into the chapel with the news that the battle had been won by the Americans under General Jackson. The Prioress of the Convent, Mother St. Marie, made a vow at that time that a mass of thanksgiving would be said on that date forever in gratitude for the intercession of Our Lady of Prompt Succor. Ever since, the Mass has been faithfully held on January 8th, and January 8th is officially designated as the feast day of Our Lady of Prompt Succor.
The statue of Our Lady of Prompt Succor has since been moved from the Old Ursuline Convent to its current location in the chapel of the Ursuline Academy and Convent on State Street in uptown New Orleans. This location is now denominated The National Shrine of Our Lady of Prompt Succor. The statue is thought to be the oldest image of the Virgin original to the the United States.
Jacopo Carucci, called Pontormo. A fresco detail from the Medici Villa in Poggio a Caiano, 1520-1521
IGNUDO: (plural- ignudi) - from the Italian “nudo” meaning nude. Michaelangelo coined this term himself to describe the various nude male decorative elements he used to decorate the interstices of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. An ignudo can be a nude male figure of any age.
PUTTO: (plural- putti) a pre-pubescent decorative nude male figure used extensively throughout all Renaissance art and carried into and further developed to a ridiculous degree of exuberance during the Baroque era. Putti were sometimes portrayed with wings, sometimes without.
CHERUBINO: a nude (and sometimes clothed) male figure of varying age but very similar to a putto and sometimes confused with them by the un-initiated. Cherubino (plural- Cherubim) were sometime not just purely decorative, and were often used as main characters in an artistic composition. Cherubim are angels from heaven, figures from the Judo-Christian pantheon, whereas Putti are considered to be semi-godlike beings from the pagan, Greco-Roman theistic tradition.
GANYMEDE: Ganymede was a figure drawn from Greco-Roman mythology. He was an exquisitely beautiful human youth whom Zeus espied from the elevations of Mt Ida and instantly fell in love with. Zeus disguised in the form of an eagle swooped down from the heavens and abducted Ganymede to carry him off to Olympus to become cup bearer to the Gods. He represents the homoerotic or bi-sexual just-barely or pre-adolescent standard of male beauty so prized and so sublimated throughout all of Renaissance art. He was Zeus’s butt-boy. ( In modern parlance, the term Ganymede has come to be used as a subtle dig by the overly-sophisticated to refer to any youthful, effete and potentially homosexual male.)
DAVIDE: Italian for David, as in Michaelangelo’s most famous sculptural achievement: A naked STUD (capitalization intended). The fully developed ideal of Renaissance nude masculine beauty.
GARCONNE GLUTIÈRE: (French Renaissance terminology) O.K., I made that one up, but Leonardo was purported to have had several in his stable of male models he used as muses. No conclusive evidence exists that Leonardo was into twinks, but rumors were rife…
Portrait of a Halberdier. Jacopo Carucci, called Pontormo, 1528-1530.
Oil and oil tempra on panel, transferred to canvas. appx.36” x28”.
J. Paul Getty Museum, L.A., California
Pontormo’s works had been out of fashion for centuries as a result of the bad “rap” given to him by his jealous co-competitor for Medici favor, Vasari, who described Pontormo in his famous work “Lives of the Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects” as a paranoid, secretive loner whose artistic qualities were subpar.
Many works by this artist have been severely damaged or lost forever to neglect as a result of this undeserved and malignant character assassination on the part of Vasari, and the public’s blind and gullible willingness to accept and conform to the dictates of a soi-disant “connoisseur” of inferior talent whose real (and ulterior) motives were bent on the destruction of a competitor.
However, since the middle of the last century Pontormo’s reputation and remaining works of art have enjoyed a revival of esteem with art historians and the public . Indeed, this painting, which had hung in the Frick collection in New York City since 1970, was sold at auction by Christies in 1989 to the J. Paul Getty Museum of Malibu, California— for $35.2 million!!!!!
This was, until 2002, the highest price ever paid for a portrait by one of the Old Masters.
Vasari, eat your heart out!
- Jacques-Louis David, The Death Of Socrates. 1787 oil on canvas, 55” x 77 1/4” The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Socrates was put on trial in 399 B.C. by the city-state of Athens for impiety and for corrupting the morals of youths. At his trial, he was accused by the Athenians of using unconventional teaching techniques which allegedly encouraged his students to question authority and to make logical inquiry into the religious beliefs and superstitions of the time. Such audacity was seen by those in authority to be destabilizing to the state.
Upon his conviction, Socrates was given the choice of exile- or of death, by drinking a libation poisoned with hemlock. He chose death rather than to live a life separated from the society of his peers, students and fellow Athenians, cut off from any ability to continue teaching and studying.
Plato says that when presented with the cup of poison after the trial, Socrates gathered his favorite students together for a last goodbye,
“… then holding the cup to his lips, quite readily and cheerfully he drank off the poison.”