Something Beautiful

St. John Lateran, Rome

Get ready for something totally amazing. Have a look at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, a famous church in Rome, Italy -- Baptistry.

Convinced? I thought so. These interiors of the main church are not quite as spectacular, but still impressive and often lovely --

Nave

Aisle, south nave

Crossing (favorite)

Transept, south

Making the ground green

One of my favorite quotations, from Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) --

The work an unknown good [person] has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.

Nativity (limewood)

Here's one more set of wood sculptures -- Nativity with Angels and Shepherds, ca. 1485 (limewood, polychromy). It's at the Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam.

Long is life

The Buddha:  "Long is the night to him who is awake; long is a mile to him who is tired; long is life to the foolish who do not know the true law." 

Our new president

I'm not going to celebrate today with a clip or a quote from the inauguration (although I'll probably put Reverend Lowery's prayer up one of these days.)

Instead, here's a beautiful man who moves with grace and elegance, and I love to think of him like this -- Barack on the Ellen Show, when he was still a mere Senator.

Tall thin black dude + neat lesbian white lady = magic in America.

Arenburg Lamentation (wood sculpture)

The Detroit Institute of Arts site has a wonderful zoom feature that enables you to get quite close to any given work of art. Try it on the excellent Arenburg Lamentation, ca. 1460, by an unknown Flemish master (oak with traces of polychromy).

Saturn and its moons

NASA's Cassini Spacecraft is now reaching the end of its four-year prime mission (on June 30th), and about to enter into its extended mission. The Boston Globe has taken advantage of this marker to publish some of the fantastic images Cassini has sent home over the past four years.  These twelve photos of Saturn and its moons are truly extraordinary.

Van Gogh

The exhibition at MoMA has been taken down, but its accompanying website fortunately remains -- Van Gogh and the colors of the night. The site is tres beautiful -- prepare to be impressed!

A few notes --

macro navigation (section to section) is on the left of the screen;

micro navigation (page to page, or painting to painting) is on the right.

There are five main sections, as follows:

Early landscapes (10 works);

Peasant life (8 works);

Sowers and wheatfields (7 works);

Poetry, night, town (9 works);

Poetry, night, country (6 works)

Lute music (poem)

The poem Lute Music by Kenneth Rexroth is certainly a fine one. Wish I'd found it in time for New Year's Eve.

Bowing - a serious practice

"Bowing is a very serious practice. You should be prepared to bow, even in your last moment. Even though it is impossible to get rid of our self-centered desires, we have to do it. Our true nature wants us to. Sometimes the disciple bows to the master, sometimes the master bows to the disciple. A master who cannot bow to his disciple cannot bow to the Buddha. Sometimes the master and disciple bow together to the Buddha. Sometimes we may bow to cats and dogs."

-- Shunryu Suzuki (1904-1971)