#1 Svetlana Kasyan Opera Star from Moscow, Russia “Love and Art Should Reign Again” Thirty-five year old Russian opera star Svetlana Kasyan celebrated her birthday this year at the Vatican with Pope Francis. Kasyan was born and raised in Georgia, and now resides with her husband and young daughter in Moscow. As an opera singer, Kasyan [...]
Correggio's "Noli Me Tangere" in the Prado Art in Parma in the 16th Century For the general exhibition-going public, Italian Renaissance art — and especially the art of the 16th century — tends to revolve around three great centers: Florence, Venice, and Rome. Instead, “Correggio and Parmigianino” — on at Rome’s Scuderie until June [...]
"The Crucifixion in Central Park" “Art is a spiritual, immaterial respite from the hardships of life.” —Fernando Botero Born in Medellín, Colombia, on April 19, 1932, Fernando Botero, whose signature style, also known as “Boterismo,” depicts overly rotund human figures both in his paintings and in his sculptures, is one of today’s most prolific [...]
In the Vatican Gardens, Pope Francis blesses two new statues by Argentine artist Alejandro Marmo (CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano) “Art must not discard anything or anybody. It’s like mercy.” Pope Francis, May 29, 2015 During a recent conversation with Monsignor Jacobone, he mentioned that on Saturday, February 18, 1984, in Rome’s Dominican church, Santa Maria [...]
Here: The Maccabees (1857-63) by Antonio Ciseri for the Church of Santa Felicita in Florence At the press preview of the exhibition “Divine Beauty,” on at Florence’s Palazzo Strozzi through January 24, 2016, Giuseppe Cardinal Bettori referred to a benchmark sermon given by Pope Paul VI to a group of artists on May [...]
On until August 18th in Florence at the Palazzo Strozzi is the blockbuster exhibition, The Springtime of the Renaissance: Sculpture and the Arts in Florence 1400-60. From September 26 until January 6, 2014, it will be at the Louvre in Paris. Primarily through sculpture, the branch of figurative art that generated this “new season,” the exhibition [...]
Gian Lorenzo Bernini was the most famous and important sculptor in 17th century Europe, but he was also a recognized architect, painter, events organizer, poet and playwright. He was born in Naples, Italy, on December 7, 1598, to a Mannerist sculptor, Pietro Bernini, originally from near Florence, and his wife, Angelica Galante, a Neapolitan. He was [...]
A photograph by Nan Goldin of paperoles in a private collection in Turin. The super-elegant Italian industrialist and principal shareholder of the FIAT Motor Company, Giovanni Agnelli (1921-2003), better known as “Gianni,” and his widow Marella, were avid art patrons and collectors. He bequeathed their extraordinary collection of paintings to his birthplace, which is [...]
Facebook of heaven for the Word that became flesh. A new Mount Tabor for a divided Christianity. Reference point of return for the formerly Christian nations: the human face of God “Truth is a person“ – Nicolàs Gómez Dávila By Paul Badde The “true image” in Frankfurt Cathedral. In October 2011, at the baptism [...]
St. Anthony is the best known of the Desert Fathers. The Desert Fathers were hermits, ascetics, monks, and nuns who lived mainly in the Scetes desert of Egypt beginning around the third century AD. Saint Anthony was born in the year 251, in Qimn El-Arouse (Cooma) near Herakleopolis Magna in Lower Egypt, to wealthy landowner parents. [...]
