Thursday, August 6, 2009

Transfiguration Day

Giovanni Bellini, The Transfiguration


Transfiguration, where all that is ordinary and familiar is made radiant, new, and glorious for us. Transfiguration is our assurance that this drab world of toil, suffering, evil, and death that we see is not the whole story.

4 comments:

June Butler said...

Transfiguration is our assurance that this drab world of toil, suffering, evil, and death that we see is not the whole story.

Doug, that is my great hope.

The Bellini is beautiful. The folds of the robes and the colors are exquisite.

What's beneath the pod of dirt on which the figures are situated - the rocky stuff?

Counterlight said...

The stone gully plays the same role as the little wooden rail off to the right. It establishes distance, and uncrossable distance, between us and the event.

June Butler said...

Yes, I wondered about the fence, too. It's pretty obvious now you mention it. It seems that I should have been able to make the leap. There's so much about the language of art that I don't know and don't understand.

Lapinbizarre said...

One lives and learns. Traveling from the Bellini to check what connection he might have had with Mantegna, I see that Mantegna was his brother-in-law. Accounts for that stylistic influence, doesn't it?