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Bertolt Brecht | Of all the works of man / Tra tutte le opere

Of all the works of man I like best
Those which have been used.

The copper pots with their dents and flattened edges
The knives and forks whose wooden handles
Have been worn away by many hands: such forms
Seemed to me the noblest.

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) | Crouching Boy, 1524 | Hermitage, St. Petersburg

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Johannes Vermeer died on this day, in 1675

Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) passed away on this day December 15th, 1675.
He was 43 years old.
Vermeer’s small oeuvre is remarkable.
It is estimated that Vermeer created around 40 to 50 paintings, which is not a big number compared to other master painters of the time.
For example, Rembrandt made around 300 paintings and Frans Hals around 200.


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Wisława Szymborska / René Magritte | A Note / Una nota

Life is the only way
to get covered in leaves,
catch your breath on the sand,
rise on wings;
to be a dog,
or stroke its warm fur;


to tell pain
from everything it's not;

to squeeze inside events,
dawdle in views,
to seek the least of all possible mistakes.

An extraordinary chance
to remember for a moment
a conversation held
with the lamp switched off;

and if only once
to stumble upon a stone,
end up soaked in one downpour or another,

mislay your keys in the grass;
and to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes;
and to keep on not knowing
something important.


René Magritte | L'Utopie, 1945 | Cleveland Museum of Art

Wisława Szymborska | Una nota

La vita - è il solo modo
per coprirsi di foglie,
prendere fiato sulla sabbia,
sollevarsi sulle ali;

essere un cane,
o carezzarlo sul suo pelo caldo;
distinguere il dolore
da tutto ciò che dolore non è;

stare dentro gli eventi,
dileguarsi nelle vedute,
cercare il più piccolo errore.


Un’occasione eccezionale
per ricordare per un attimo
di che si è parlato
a luce spenta;

e almeno per una volta
inciampare in una pietra,
bagnarsi in qualche pioggia,
perdere le chiavi tra l’erba;

e seguire con gli occhi una scintilla
nel vento;

e persistere nel non sapere
qualcosa d’importante.


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Vincent van Gogh | Two peasant women digging in field with snow, 1890

Van Gogh was fascinated with the labour and life of peasants, as expressed in art and literature.
In his paintings and drawings, he prominently featured working men and women.
He believed that to truly capture ‘the heart of the people’, an artist must immerse himself in their world.
He saw labourers as simple, kind-hearted and courageous people, often holding them in higher regard than those he termed "civilized".

Vincent van Gogh | Two peasant women digging in field with snow, 1890 | Kunsthaus Zürich

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Happy 194th Birthday, Emily Dickinson!

American poet Emily Dickinson (December 10, 1830 - May 15, 1886) was born 194 years ago, in 1830.
Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry.
Despite Dickinson's prolific writing, only ten poems and a letter were published during her lifetime.
After her younger sister Lavinia discovered the collection of nearly 1,800 poems, Dickinson's first volume was published four years after her death.

Bronze sculpture of Emily Dickinson by Jane DeDecker

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Giovanni Segantini | L’angelo della vita (Dea cristiana), 1894

The Angel of Life (Christian Goddess) was commissioned in 1891 or shortly before by the banker Leopoldo Albini, together with the Pagan Goddess, now exhibited alongside it.
The two works were intended to form a diptych on the theme of women, a mystical mother in the case of the painting considered here, a worldly and lustful vision in the other.
The two figures are portraits of the family nanny, Baba, and of her son Gottardo (painted from memory, since he must have been twelve years old at the time).

Giovanni Segantini | L’angelo della vita (Dea cristiana), 1894 (detaglio) | GAM - Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Milano

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Spinario (Boy pulling a thorn from his foot)

Boy with Thorn, also called Fedele (Fedelino) or Spinario, is a Greco-Roman Hellenistic bronze sculpture of a boy withdrawing a thorn from the sole of his foot, now in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome.
There is a Roman marble version of this subject from the Medici collections in a corridor of the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
The sculpture was one of the very few Roman bronzes that was never lost to sight.
The work was standing outside the Lateran Palace when the Navarrese rabbi Benjamin of Tudela saw it in the 1160s and identified it as Absalom, who "was without blemish from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head".

Lo Spinario | Palazzo dei Conservatori, Musei Capitolini