Corpus.
Vitamine P2. Theorie. James Elkins. James Elkins: The Most Beautiful Painting in the World. This month I am going to write about the painting that means the most to me, Giovanni Bellini's Ecstasy of St. Francis in the Frick Collection in Manhattan. By a stroke of luck it is included in the Google Art Project, so I can reproduce it in detail. When I was young--maybe from the age of ten or twelve--I was entranced by this painting. I used to love it (I was sort of obsessed by it), but now it is largely ruined for me, and the reason is that I have read too much about it. This month I am going to introduce the painting, and see if I can convince you how absolutely astonishing it is, and next month I will explain how too much reading can undermine your experience of the visual world.
The painting shows Saint Francis, dressed in his monk's robes, looking up into the sky. They're hypnotic, those rocks. Immediately above the saint's head, the cliff face divides and flows around him, as if he were a boulder in a stream. The color is a mystery. Clearly something mysterious is happening.
Technique peinture. 1% artistique. Art-conférences en ligne. Art-lieux. Engramma. La tradizione classica nella memoria occidentale. Sculpture réaliste. L'aménagement linguistique.