Thursday, June 13, 2013

Lampone



Day 8, thinking of my destiny and how I'll face fate
In a race but the question is where can I first place faith
Mental flex flow, journaling on the train to Arezzo
Caravaggio bragadocio is my best mode
Eating cinghiale boar, it's gone with a poof
like the best smoke
As the rest toke inferior, I treat myself like chiesa interiors
Bringing tears in a spree until all you see is a bleary blur
Weird with words, bad with faces
In Accadamia dell'arte learning Commedia basics
When I need it I taste it, on the tip of my tongue
Can't let time waste, gotta live while I'm young
So I give in to fun, there's NOT you'll tell me
My every season is spring, I'll be BOTicelli
Smoother than peanut butter and I'm stocking jelly
When the rubber meets the road I will pop Pirellis



Italian Soundtrack by C.A pt 8 :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7mwZULsVcQ


Today, we arrived in Arezzo.

Arezzo is the capitol of the Tuscan province with the same name. As part of the Etruscan League, Arezzo is approximately six hundred years older than the infamous Rome. However it is these very Romans who captured Arezzo in 311 B.C. 
Draped across the sunny side of a hill, the remains of an ancient Medici fort, complete with wind-worn walls, shelters the Basilica di San Francsico and the world famous fresco cycle by Piero della Francesca, "History of the True Cross."
One part of the cycle






If you had to name one point of interest, it would be Piazza Grande.
Built on a slant and surrounded by an attractive jumble of palazzos, towers and churches in which medieval and renaissance styles vie for supremacy, this is the focal point of Arezzo's famous antique fair (held on the first Sunday of each month and the preceding Saturday) and the venue for the Giostra del Saracino, a medieval jousting contest between the eight districts of the town, which happens twice a year in June and September (June 18 – today – and September 4 this year).








After a brief tour of the city, we headed back to the Accademia for some much needed sustenance.  But not before we stole a few scenic pictures.

Do you see the fish face?



After a meal of pesto and salad, not to mention a few piping hot cups of coffee, we shuffled in to Studio 2 for Dr. Scott McGehee's lecture on the Renaissance. For starters, he outlined the evolution of power systems in society, as Commedia designs itself around the current power structure


Systems of Power: Early Modern
  1. Sovereign Power
  •          Centralized
  •          Externally imposed
  •           Personal
  •          Hierarchies based on fixed class
  •           Visible i.e public executions
  •           Violent
  •           Embodied

Systems of Power: Modern
  1. Disciplinary power
  •         "Centralized" yet institutionally dispersed throughout social body(micro-power)
  •          Impersonal
  •           Hierarchies based on institutions
  •          Surveillance
  •          Externally imposed with intention of behavior modification i.e (public schools)
  •           Proliferation of laws/rules/regulations
  •           Accumulation of knowledge
  •           Violence as last resort

Systems of Power: Contemporary



  1. Control Power
  •     Decentralized, "fractal"
  •     Disembodied
  •     Impersonal
  •     Internal(self-control, self-regulation) i.e, Facebook, Apple, having power




We then went  deep into the concepts of Humanism, a driving force in the Renaissance.
 

Humanism
  • Man is the measure of all things
  • Man is the self-creating center
  • Interest in man as he is rather than as he should be
  • Coincides with the rise of merchant class and shifting power based on $$$$


This concept is crucial to understanding the difference between Medieval art and Renaissance art.


Medieval Art
  • Art infused with a transcendent spirit and other-worldliness
  • Symbolic;expressed in world of compressed time and space


Renaissance Art
  • Explores power of immanence
  • Represented in real space and time
  • Perspective creates a singular POV from which universal truth is seen
  • Greek root word of Theatre and Theory are the same...a place from which to see
  • Outward expression of emotion, stylized



The next lesson will be on Commedia characters!

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