Thank You, and Goodnight!

I began this Giornale five years ago today, and feel like today is as good a day as any to end it. This last year my enthusiasm for weblogging has subsided, and I prefer to make a clean end to it now, rather than allow it to suffer a slower demise by neglect. Comments will be disabled at the end of the month, but I intend to keep everything on-line for at least a couple more years.

I am very grateful to everyone who has participated in this site in any way. Special thanks go to Michelangelo, for his fine contributions to its upkeep. My heartfelt thanks also to all who have suggested ideas for entries, provided links, and to those artists who have generously sent me examples of their work. Mille grazie to all of you who have commented, read, or just stopped by to look at the pictures.

The three images here are details from illustrations in Luigi Serafini’s book Pulcinellopedia Piccola. These have been reproduced without permission, only for as long as no-one objects to their presence on this site. Arrivederci, thank you, and goodnight!

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Ghisi

Seeing a post about Giorgio Ghisi’s engraving Allegoria della Vita Umana (‘Allegory of Human Life,’ also known—like an earlier engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi—as ‘The Dream of Raphael’) at John Coulthart’s feuilleton weblog, led me to seek more information about this printmaker, and, ultimately, led me to buy a book about his work: Paolo Bellini’s L’opera Incisa de Giorgio Ghisi, published in 1998 by Tassotti Editore of Bassano del Grappa. The following images are details of scans of the works illustrated in this book.

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Ghisi was born in Mantua in 1520, to which city his ancestors had moved from Parma a century before. Many in the Ghisi clan were notaries, while others, like Giorgio’s father Ludovico, were merchants. The engraver’s childhood and youth coincided with the construction and decoration of the Palazzo del Te, under the supervision of Giulio Romano. From about 1535, it is thought that Ghisi studied engraving with one Giovanni Battista Scultori, whose workshop was largely dedicated to reproducing Romano’s designs. Ghisi’s earliest known prints can be dated to the early 1540s.

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Ghisi lived and worked in Rome for a few years in the late 1540s, where it is likely he met the renowned Flemish artist & printseller Hieronymus Cock. He relocated to Antwerp ca. 1550, to work at Cock’s print shop Au Quatre Vents (‘At the Four Winds’). From about 1554 Ghisi was in France, ‘working with Fontainebleau artists like Luca Penni and Primaticcio and presenting works by Giulio Romano, Raphael, and Michelangelo to Northern print-collectors and painters.’ Ghisi returned to Mantua in the late 1560s, where he remained until his death in 1582.

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The present images are (i) ‘Silenus Sleeping,’ one of Ghisi’s earliest surviving prints, after a design by Giulio Romano; (ii) ‘The Vision of Ezekiel,’ which follows an original by Giovan Battista Bertani; (iii) ‘Venus Pricked by the Thorns on a Rose-Bush’ and (iv) ‘Apollo Among the Muses,’ both of which are modelled on works by Luca Penni; (v) ‘Allegory of Life’s Destiny,’ which is thought to be based on a lost design of Romano’s, and, (vi) ‘Hercules Resting After his Labours,’ which again carries the influence of Romano, but is meanwhile, in the detail of the landscape in the background, reminiscent of the work of Flemish painters such as Marten Heemskerck.

House of Rats

Burning Inside, an exhibition of Judith Schaechter’s work in stained glass, opens at the Claire Oliver Gallery in New York tomorrow. I mentioned Judith’s work here once before, and was delighted to hear from her again this summer, announcing both the (then forthcoming) exhibition, and her new website, House of Rats.

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Judith Schaechter’s stained glass windows are composed of flash glass: a thin veneer of brilliant color bonded to paler layers of color underneath. Most of the color is harbored within the glass itself; Schaechter reveals it by sandblasting and engraving the flash and then often layering several pieces together. She models her images in black enamel, fired on the kiln, and sometimes adds silver stain or cold paint. The windows are then assembled with the copper foil technique, and installed in a light box—(source).

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When I start a new piece, it’s like I’ve never done anything artwise before. All accumulated knowledge is really useless because I want to make something truly brand-new every time; like reinventing the wheel without the benefit of remembering round shapes. This may seem utterly disingenuous considering my output has a very consistent look to it […] I figure that’s because though I may be reinventing, I “independently” come to similar conclusions all the time. And obviously I can’t really forget what I know. I just don’t rely on it.—(source).

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In Alex Baxter’s preface to the book Extra Virgin: The Stained Glass of Judith Schaechter, he quotes the artist thus: ‘My work’s not intended to make comfortable people unhappy, although it may make unhappy people comfortable:’ a just and pithy assessment, I think. The images above are all Copyright © 2000-07 Judith Schaechter: they are details of works pictured at the artist’s website (click to see the images in full), and have been reproduced here with her permission.