La Madonna di San Luca

 

The Madonna di San Luca sits outside the city of Bologna on Monte della Guardia. The church houses an image of the Madonna and Child attributed to St. Luke with miraculous powers which have made it a significant pilgrimage site. The church is joined to the city by an arcade composed of 666 arches stretching from the city gate out of the city, over the road and up the mountain. The arcade provides shelter for pilgrims and protection for the relic on its annual procession down into Bologna. The reasoning behind the peculiar number of arches is said to be an attempt protect the relic on its journey by beating the Devil at his own game. The arcade, gate and church were all designed by Carlo Francesco Dotti and built between 1674 and 1793. Sections of the arcade between the city gate and the pilgrim bridge now support five story buildings along what one hundred years ago would have been farmland, and since the builders seemed to have been more concerned with quantity than quality some of the arches list at disturbing angles. The walk to the top is quite a hike especially since each arch is numbered, reminding you how few arches you have passed.

 The beginning of the Portico di San Luca leading out of the city

The gate of the city facing the arcade

 The arcade stretching out to the fantastic gate and bridge over the road

 The gate from the inside

 View of the gate from the countryside. The pilgrim route climbs up a set of stairs, over the road and around the curve of the left wing of the gate and then up the mountain

The arcade stretching up the steep mountain

 Looking back down the arcade

 

The central portico of the church

The altar

The Madonna of St. Luke

An aerial view of the church and arcade

A great gypsy manouche band (Tolga During) performing  in Piazza Maggiore in front of the cathedral

Yvette's New Artist in Residence

CAUTION! This post is completely inane. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~!!!

 
As I believe I have already mentioned, I am continually blown away by this website. Especially the new page on their artist in residence. I keep asking myself if this is some amazingly peculiar joke, or a bid for the worst website of all time, but I think it's really serious... I imagine Yvette's to be some kind of magnetic spot where really, really strange people congregate and devise even more nauseating website backgrounds while helping unsuspecting bride-to-be's into apricot-coloured gowns and plotting the return of classical art using household pigments like ketchup red and banana yellow.

And I quote from the artist's bio:
"I have often been asked whether I attended school for my art
education......perhaps the College of Visual Arts, Theater and
Dance @ Florida State University in Tallahassee, the capital of
Florida, or maybe the Maryland Institute College of Art in the
vicinity of the capital of the United States ~*
.........the honest truth is that I have not had the benefit of any
formal education in the Visual Arts at a contemporary art
institute, college or school ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
if the answer was yes, I know I would have gained a great deal
of advantage from such experience ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
my entrance into the wonderful world of Fine Arts, particularly
Drawing & Painting Portraits, came about in a rather unusual
manner, it seems ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
about six years ago I experienced an amazing Triad of
repeating dream patterns !! ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
for three consecutive nights I was enraptured in the spell of
the most illuminating pageantry of beautiful dreams ~*~*~*~*
regal delightful dreams of rainbows and butterflies and
fireflies and lightening flashes and yellow canaries and
swallow song and sea waves and puffy pink flamingos and
soft white clouds passing aimlessly across a cerulean sky and
stars and spinning spiral galaxies and sunsets and sunrises
on worlds that seemed a world away and to and fro on this
nightly magic carpet ride ~*~* these brilliant, mystical dreams
always ended in the same way........the sound of a heart
pulsing in the midst of random patterns of colors swirling all
around me ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
on the morning after the third night of these enigmatic esoteric
journeys, I was sitting comfortably out back in my tile floored
Florida Room with the ceiling fan on a low setting when a
feeling of inspiration began to overwhelm me........something
like an instantaneous desperation hit me out of the proverbial
blue and I experienced a great compassion to do
something.........."do what?", I thought to myself.........this
uncertainty and confusion lasted for what now seems like 5 or
10 minutes.........I wanted to do something...........I strongly
desired to engage in some sort of activity but I had no idea
what said activity could possibly be ?? ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
then, in a flash, it was clear to me..........I saw myself sitting
before an easel ( at that time I didn't even know what an easel
was nor did I know anything about paint or painting ) with a
palette in one hand and artist's brushes in the other slinging
every color imaginable upon a huge canvas !! ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*


..........all the tropical fishes in all the tropical seas of the world and
the majestic polar ices with their arctic casts of shining
auroras abound from here to all eternia and beyond in the
lively parade of promenade adorned in natural royal regalia
gifting us with essential elements of earthen delight !! ~*~*~*~*
~*~*~*~*~*~* sharing happiness with others is a temporal and
~*~*~*~* ethereal pleasure, the wellspring of prosperity ~*
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
/~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Unquote...

Pieter de Hooch

                                        

"See feinting from his plot of paint

 The trench of light on boards, the much-mended dry

Courtyard wall of brick

And sun submerged in beer, and streaming in glasses,

The weave of a sleeve, the careful and undulant tile."