Fall\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Back to School Moon<\/p>\n
Down to Ada’s Deli this am for fried matzo and egg with onions and lox.\u00a0 My mystery guest (Kate’s retirement gift) told me her kids loved fried matzo with syrup.\u00a0 Hmm…not with lox and onions for this gentile.<\/p>\n
We had a spirited hour long discussion.\u00a0 Very high energy, Deb is.\u00a0 Her fiance deals in the secondary metals market, aluminum.\u00a0 She’s in favor of retirement, wants to travel with her new love.\u00a0 She used to live in Hyde Park and brightened when I said we could have met at Jimmie’s.\u00a0 Gonna be good, I know for sure.<\/p>\n
When we finished, I walked out on Wabash to Washington.\u00a0 Orthodox Jewish men here with black satchels.\u00a0 Jeweler’s Row.\u00a0 Up Washington to Michigan Avenue, south a block of Michigan and over to the Art Institute.\u00a0 Great weather and I considered just heading into Grant Park, but the Institute was right there.<\/p>\n
Wandered in the European Art before 1900, finding many Baroque paintings, some wonderful Renaissance works, too.\u00a0 Overall, our collection compares well, not in quantity but in quality.\u00a0 Baroque is a propaganda art form like Socialist Realism; the Roman Catholic church wanted to counter the rising tide of the Protestant Reformation.\u00a0 One branch of that counter reformation effort emphasized images that spoke of particularly Catholic themes, at least as the Catholic church saw it:\u00a0 forgiveness, assumption of Mary, saints, crucifixion scenes.<\/p>\n
They were lucky that some of the very best painters in the Western tradition came to the task with energy and invention.\u00a0 Many well known names were Baroque painters:\u00a0 Vermeer, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Poussin, Rubens and Vermeer.<\/p>\n
The Baroque painters select the climactic moment to depict. They use rich, deep colors, often lots of shadow. wanting to arouse emotion, a commitment of faith in the religious insistence.<\/p>\n
Religious painting does not exhaust Baroque themes, however.\u00a0 Our own Lucretia by Rembrandt is a Baroque work that features a historical them from Roman history.<\/p>\n
These are wonderful paintings, romantic in a sense, calling the viewer to participate, to feel, to decide.\u00a0 Glad I had the chance to see more examples here in Chicago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fall\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Back to School Moon Down to Ada’s Deli this am for fried matzo and egg with onions and lox.\u00a0 My mystery guest (Kate’s retirement gift) told me her kids loved fried matzo with syrup.\u00a0 Hmm…not with lox and onions for this gentile. We had a spirited hour long discussion.\u00a0 Very high energy, Deb … Continue reading A Baroque Morning<\/span>