This past week at the Museum

Tags

colville, Dutch, Europe, Flanders, Flemish painters., Holland, Mary Pratt, Monet, Netherlands, Painters, Rubens, Tronie

It was a busy week at the National Gallery of Canada, I attended several meetings with fellow docents, continued to plan the 24 lectures I am organizing for the new Season starting in September, I attended a staff meeting before the opening of the retrospective on Alex Colville who died in 2013. His daughter Ann was present and she said words about her parents who were married for 70 years and died within 7 months of each other, it was very touching and wonderful. Looking at his painting they are very personal, about every day life but there is also in some of them a certain tension.

Colville loved the movie ” No country for old men” a modern horror story. Some of his paintings have a gun resting on a table, it is just a gun but it is unnerving to just see it on a table and it makes you wonder what could happen. It is that tension that attracts your eye. Other paintings are of a couple, mostly him and his wife Rhoda in everyday situation. He was also a War Artist during the Second World War. He was at the Bergen Belsen Camp when it was liberated and those experiences haunted him though has his daughter said he never spoke much about it. There is also his love of animals and how he feels about them, he had many dogs and believed in their innate goodness. Those qualities of evil or deceit so frequent in humans is absent in animals unless they are taught. A very interesting man, though a social conservative and he did live in a small University town most of his life he was well connected to the world. The show is very well curated by Andrew Hunter of the Art Gallery of Ontario and Adam Welch of the National Gallery of Canada.

The artist Mary Pratt also gave a lecture on Thursday night, she worked with Colville, she is currently featured at the museum, with her paintings of Erotic Jellies, very nice.

I also presented two works of art, one being the Head of an Old women by Pierre Paul Rubens. I was startled by a visitor who was listening to my presentation and when I mentioned that the Dutch word for such a generic painting was Tronie, the lady told me that she was from the Netherlands  and spoke fluent Dutch, she said she had never heard the word. I was puzzled because I was sure I had read this description and was wondering if I might have made a mistake in my understanding. I looked it up and the word Tronie does exist but it is a 16th century Dutch word. Used by the artists of the time to describe a generic head or a head or face which cannot be identified with any one in particular or something grotesque. So I will have to specify that next time in my presentation. I like presenting this painting by Rubens because it leads into how painters like him worked and what was involved in their trade at the time.

We are also having a Monet exhibit in September about 14 of his paintings, one in particular Le Pont de Bois painted in 1872 shows a bridge being re-built across the Seine River near Paris after the destruction of the original one during the Franco-Prussian War. This painting was said to be on loan to us by an anonymous benefactor.

It turns out that the anonymous person is Josef Straus owner of JDS Uniphase, he bought the painting at Sotheby’s in London in June 2013 for about $11 million dollars. The proceeds of that sale were donated to UNICEF by the Estate of the previous owner Gustav Rau.

Straus is a longtime benefactor of the National Gallery of Canada.

Littoria 1932 o Latina 1945.

Tags

Italy, Latina, Mussolini, Pontine Marshes

In my reading on Italy and archeology I came across an article on the City of Latina in the Pontine Marshes South of Rome. The Pontine Marshes is a huge swath of land South of the Eternal City, very flat marshy soil fed by numerous streams. Until the 1930’s was a very unhealthy place for humans full of mosquitos carrying malaria and land that could not be used for agricultural purposes. The former marsh is a low tract of mainly agricultural land created by draining and filling, separated from the sea by sand dunes. The area amounts to about 80,000 ha (800 km2; 310 sq mi)

In Antiquity quite a few Emperors and Senators had dreams of draining the Pontine Marshes to make it fit for agriculture. Unfortunately they did not have the engineering knowhow to make this dream come true. One of the problems of the Italian Peninsula and Sicily has always been poverty, it was true 2700 years ago and it remained true until the 1960’s when the economic miracle and rapid development helped many Italians to climb into the ranks of the Middle Class.

Italy has always been a country of Nobles (the few) and poor (the many), the Nobles owned the land and the poor worked that land for them. Garibaldi in 1860 with the Unification movement of the whole peninsula and the abolition of the great Estates sought to alleviate poverty and create land re-distribution. That did not work, the powerful resisted it and took all means possible to prevent such re-distribution of wealth. Thus millions of Italians immigrated to South and North America in search of a better life. After 1945, millions of Italians again migrated from the South to the North of the Peninsula only to find discrimination against them because of their accent, swarthy skin and poor education. This is when a wave of Italians departed for Canada and the USA yet again. In Sicily which was never part of Italy until 1870 there was talk of a referendum to join as a State, the USA.

All this to say that the vast social programs of the Fascists and Benito Mussolini, much of them inspired by the dreams of Garibaldi and of a former, long ago time of imperial glory where so popular. Even today in the current climate of economic crisis and mounting social problems, there is nostalgia for the days of the Fascist Regime (1923-1943).

Littoria is just such a result of aggressive social engineering to alleviate poverty and create wealth for the masses. The name Littoria is interesting it comes from Lictor, plural lictors or lictores, member of an ancient Roman class of magisterial attendants, probably Etruscan in origin and dating in Rome from the regal period. Lictors carried the fasces for their magistrate and were constantly in his attendance in public; they cleared his way in crowds and summoned and punished offenders for him. They also served as their magistrate’s house guard. In Rome the lictors wore togas; during a consul’s triumph or while outside Rome they wore scarlet coats.

Emperors originally had 12 lictors, but after Domitian (reigned ad 81–96) they had 24; dictators, 24; consuls, 12; praetors, 6; legates, 5; and priests, 1.

Lictors carrying Fasces 

Starting in 1922, the Italian government’s Department of Health, working with the Opera Nazionale Combattenti, developed a new initiative to combat malaria called the bonifica integrale. It featured three stages, the first being the bonifica idraulica, which would drain the swamp and control the waters. Mussolini and his party called it “the battle of the swamps” because it required the recruitment, deployment, and supply of an army of workers. In the second stage, the bonifica agraria, homesteads with stone houses and public utilities were to be constructed and the land was to be parcelled among settlers. The third stage, bonifica igienica, took measures against the mosquitos (Anopheles labranchiae), such as screens and whitewash (so the mosquitos could be easily identified and killed), and against malaria, such as distributing quinine and setting up health services.

In 1922 also, Benito Mussolini was made prime minister by the king of Italy. In 1926, the Department of Health undertook a pilot project of the new strategy in the delta of the Tiber River, reclaiming land and creating 45 new homesteads with great success, after which Mussolini climbed aboard. At his request to the Director-general of the Department of Health, Alessandro Messea submitted a plan for the Pontine Marshes. In 1928, Mussolini brought it before parliament; it became “Mussolini’s Law”, and began to be implemented in 1929. In 1939, at the incorporation ceremony of the last new city, Pomezia, the project was declared complete.

Beginning in 1930, the bonifica idraulica cleared the scrub forest, constructed a total of 16,500 km (10,300 mi) of checkerboard canals and trenches, dredged rivers, diked their banks, filled depressions, and constructed pumping stations to change the elevation in the canals where necessary. The final channel, the Mussolini Canal, empties into the Tyrrhenian Sea near Anzio. The project reached a peak in 1933 with 124000 men employed. The previous agrarian population was moved out under protest in the name of progress. Workers were interned in camps surrounded by barbed wire. The camps were overcrowded, wages were low, hours were long, food was bad, sanitation was poor, healthcare was missing, and medical attention was lacking. However, workers could quit, and the turnover was high.

The government placed about 2000 families (most from northern Italy and of unimpeachable Fascist background) in standardized but carefully varied two-storey country houses of blue stucco with tiled roofs. Each settler family was assigned a farmhouse, an oven, a plough and other agricultural tools, a stable, some cows, and several hectares of land, depending on local soil fertility and the size of the family. Mussolini used the 10-year operation for propaganda purposes, and was often photographed between workers, shirtless with a shovel in his hand, or threshing wheat at harvest time; these occasions were regularly filmed by LUCE for inclusion in nationally shown propaganda newsreels.

Fascist painting of 1933 showing the abundance of the Pontine Marshes

The new towns of Littoria (1932, now Latina), Sabaudia (1934), Pontinia (1935), Aprilia (1937), and Pomezia (1939) were founded, side by side with several other small borghi (rural villages). The carefully differentiated architecture and urban planning aspects of these towns is striking even today.

More than half a million people live in this agricultural area today

About history and archeology in Italy

Tags

Boldrini, Duce, Fascism, Foro Italico, Foro Mussolini, Italy, Rome

Recently I started reading a web site about archeology and history in Rome entitled ROMA ARCHEOLOGICA & RESTAURO ARCHITETTURA. A very interesting site, mostly in Italian language with articles and photos from various Italian papers and from archeologists. I often say that Rome does not change, you could have been in Rome 100 years ago and return now, you probably would not see much change except for the obvious cars and traffic, modern lights and other modern conveniences. Otherwise the street scape is the same. Romans and Italians in general keep everything if it is connected to history. It is almost a religion and is the source of a lot of discussions amongst many people of different social background.

In the last few weeks a furious debate has been taking place, the President of the Italian Parliament Laura Boldrini a member of the Left wing Ecology green party suggested that she would endeavour to have the word DUX for Duce the title of the late Benito Mussolini who was Prime Minister of Italy from 1923-1943 and dictator removed from the giant obelisk in the Foro Italico formerly known as Foro Mussolini.

The Foro was built in 1933 to mark the ten years in power of Mussolini and his Fascist Italian Party. This Foro, the word means plaza or Forum gathering place was built with large stadiums and other building for the Fascist Party. Though Mussolini was ousted from power by his own party in July 1943 in a vote and was later executed by the Italian Communist Partisans in 1945, his memory and shadow still occupy an important place in Italian Politics. The Foro renamed Italico is as it was when it was built and is the site of the Olympic Stadium, the games were held in Rome in 1960.

Many tourists seeing this giant obelisk to the fallen Fascist dictator and ally of Adolf Hitler are amazed that it is still standing tall and no one has lifted a finger to remove it.

Miss Laura Boldrini in Parliament used her position as President of the Chamber of Deputies to demand that the word DUX be removed from this monument. This provoked a debate that is still raging, how dare she make such a demand and it is none of her business to attack the memory of Mussolini and his monument. Many Italians believe firmly that Mussolini il Duce was a great man and did great things for Italy. He was in power for 20 years after all and he did in the first ten years do quite a few things to help the Italian economy and poor peasants, he launched many giant infrastructure works and introduced measures which benefited quite a few people. On the other hand he was ruthless and his rule was violent and he associated himself with Hitler after some initial hesitation, this alliance led to his downfall and to a war Italy could not fight nor win.

Though for us Mussolini is clearly a bad guy on the wrong side of history, Italians do not see it that way. Il Duce is part of history now and for better or for worse he occupies an important place in 20th century Italian history. Also Italians have 3000 years of history, Rome the Eternal City is 2768 years old this week. They had quite a few bad rulers before Mussolini, so they have experience which in their minds balance things out. Will Ms Boldrini get her way, that is far from certain, the obelisk and the inscription has been standing for 82 years so what is the problem.

It is sure that in any other country, subsequent governments would do all they can to erase and obscure the past when dealing with a difficult topic like a ruler who engaged in a war of aggression and who committed crimes against Humanity. But in Italy it is only a foot note at this point. More importantly has many newspaper articles and politicians have remarked to erase words on a monument does not change the past nor make it more palatable. It should be remembered that Rome is a city were building a single subway line is 12 years late and 2.5 billion Euros over budget, still no one cares much because this delay was cause by the fact that the sub-soil of Rome is littered with artefacts of its Imperial past. In Italy you do not touch history nor its buildings or monuments. Look at the Mausoleum of Augustus the first Emperor and nephew of Julius Cesar.  A fortune is being spent on restoring it and creating a new piazza with renowned architects designing the site. After all Romans will point out that Octavian later Augustus, known to be by historians as one of the best Emperors for the quality of his long rule, was voted by the Senate of Rome the titles of Imperator, Father of the Country, Prince and after his death he became a god. Surely this is important enough 2001 years after his death in 14 AD to clean and restore his giant Mausoleum. I do not think that this kind of logic would work here but it does in Italy.

Every country has its own peculiarities and this is just one of them with Italians. I remember Canadians trying to argue with Italians about Mussolini and pointing out that he was a Fascist and a dictator, that he was terrible only to be told calmly by Romans that Mussolini did make mistakes, lots of them, but that happened when he was old and tired, after 1938, surely he can be forgiven. There is also the fact which is unescapable when in Rome, that you may criticize Italy and Italians and many things you see but never forget that for a Roman you are a foreigner and Rome is the Capital of the World, nothing compares to it, even today.

Of course you also have lots of Italians who agree with Ms Boldrini and her wish to erase the memory of Il Duce and cast them in the proper light in terms of their responsibility in the Second World War and the terrible impact it had on Italy and the world.  I suppose you have to be Italian to understand why this fierce debate is taking place between Ms. Boldrini, her allies and opponents in Parliament in Rome and in the Italian Media.

Education

Tags

Cologne, Florence, Germany, Goring, Gozzoli, Monet, Munich, Paul Drey, Pisa, Renaissance

The Virgin and Child with SS. Pope Gregory the Great, John the Baptist, John the Evangelist, Julian, Dominic, and Francis
by Benozzo Gozzoli (1476)

In the new repainted European Renaissance Gallery room 201 of the National Gallery of Canada you will find this painting with a very beautiful golden frame to enhance this very large tableau. Very typical in style to the Italian Renaissance works you see in Italy in Churches and private Family chapels. In this case the name of the Saints appear in Latin in their halos, something Gozzoli liked to do in his paintings. It is done in brilliant colour and is a spectacular piece of art. At the bottom there is a dedication to the Salviati Family of Florence. This painting a Sacred Conversation was intended as an Altar piece for a church in Pisa where the Compagnia dei Fiorentini met. Like other painting of that time period at the NGC it was bought after the Second World War from families or institutions who had been forced to sell their art works or was looted art by the Nazi Regime. The Paul L. Drey Family of New York sold it to the NGC in 1951.

Originally it had been in the collection of the Wallraf-Richartz Museum of Cologne, inventory #500. In 1943 Walter Bornheim who had acquired the A.S. Drey Firm of Munich and who had Reichsmarshall Hermann Göring as an important client, acquired (forcibly sold) this painting. It was confiscated by he USA Army in 1945.

This Altar piece painting format Gozzoli will repeat it differently and it can be seen at the National Gallery in London,UK.

It is an important piece of art of the Italian Renaissance period. I try to interest people in it and take a closer look at this Altar piece. One of the difficulties is that often people do not know what they are looking at. They have no idea who is in the painting despite the name being written on the halos. One gentleman with his family looked at it for a while and when ask my his child what was it, he explained that there was this woman with a baby and Jesus was speaking to them, he was confusing Saint Francis for Jesus because of the stigmata on the hands. As for the other characters he had no idea who they might be. Now this fellow was a ”traditional” Canadian, white Christian male. It is very common today to find people under the age of 50 who have no concept or knowledge of religion of any kind.  History is a jumble of confusion, I have to be careful not to inject too many details in my explanation because again people may not understand what I am talking about. I find this very sad and often bewildering. I also see this at the Canadian War Museum, total confusion on the First and Second World War, Korea never heard of it, Vietnam there are vague memories but mostly not sure what it was about. Anything before 1990 and it is ancient history.

I remember the Priest who sang the Funeral service of my mother, telling me afterwards how impress he was with relatives and friends who attended the service because we knew the prayers and responses of the Mass. I said to him, what do you mean Father, he replied you have no idea the ignorance of people today, they only come to Church for a Funeral because they think they have to, so I just make the service short for them, otherwise they are bored.

We have other paintings, in fact the NGC has a collection of 35,000 works of art in its vault. It is the same with other works of art, no matter the era or the painter. Currently the NGC is preparing a Monet exhibition and to attract people we are showing one painting by the master entitled Le pont de bois (1872) a newly built temporary bridge over the Seine River outside Paris. People are invited to leave comments in a book with question they might have about the piece. Next to the painting there is a description of the art work, despite the fact that people read the information notes, many will ask why is the bridge destroyed or who destroyed it, what war was it? It is all explained in the notes next to the painting but it does not sink in. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 is unknown to most people despite its terrible impact it had on France and its consequences for the future in Europe. In Canada we participated to the Boer War in South Africa and has one person asked once, is it called bore war because it was boring?

I find ignorance amongst children the most troubling and the blame can be laid squarely at the feet of their parents. Though I can see with children whose parents read to them or speak to them or involve them in activities other than watching TV or sports, those children are more aware and can follow a discussion. In class I find often that children whose parents or relatives paint or take them to the museum are those who are the bright lights in the class, those who have absent parents or who only hear about hockey are often the laggard in the class. What a terrible disservice such parents do to their children.

Maggior di ROMA, 753 AC

Tags

21 April, Birthday, Italy, Rome, SPQR

The 21 April 753 BC is the birthdate of Rome. 

Rome is 2768 years old, not as old as Athens but certainly outshines it in terms of history of the Occidental World. Despite the fact that Greece gave us Philosophy, Democracy, Theatre,

Rome built on those gifts and we live with her legacy. Tu non vedrai nessuna cosa al mondo maggior di Roma!

 

Aeneas, his father and family flees burning Troy.

The national epic of mythical Rome, the Aeneid of Virgil, tells the story of how the Trojan prince Aeneas came to Italy. The Aeneid was written under Augustus, who claimed ancestry through Julius Caesar from the hero Aeneas and his mother Venus. According to the Aeneid, the survivors from the fallen city of Troy banded together under Aeneas, underwent a series of adventures around the Mediterranean Sea, including a stop at newly founded Carthage under the rule of Queen Dido, and eventually reached the Italian coast. The Trojans were thought to have landed in an area between modern Anzio and Fiumicino, southwest of Rome: probably at Laurentum, or in other versions, at Lavinium, a place named for Lavinia, the daughter of King Latinus, whom Aeneas married. The Trojans won the right to stay and to assimilate with the local peoples. The young son of Aeneas, Ascanius, also known as Iulus, went on to found Alba Longa and the line of Alban kings who filled the chronological gap between the Trojan saga and the traditional founding of Rome in the 8th century BC.

Toward the end of this line, King Procas was the father of Numitor and Amulius. At Procas’ death, Numitor became king of Alba Longa, but Amulius captured him and sent him to prison; he also forced the daughter of Numitor, Rhea Silvia, to become a virgin priestess among the Vestals. For many years Amulius was then the king. The tortuous nature of the chronology is indicated by Rhea Silvia’s ordination among the Vestals, whose order was traditionally said to have been founded by the successor of Romulus, Numa Pompilius. The myth of Aeneas, Greek in origin, had to be reconciled with the Italian myth of Romulus and Remus, who, taken as historical figures. They were purported to be sons of Rhea Silvia and Mars, the god of war. Because of a prophecy that they would overthrow their great-uncle Amulius, who had overthrown Silvia’s father Numitor, they were, in the manner of many mythological heroes, abandoned at birth; in this case, on the Tiber River by servants who took pity on the infants, despite their orders to get rid of them. The twins were nurtured by a she-wolf until a shepherd named Faustulus found and took Romulus and Remus as his sons. Faustulus and his wife, Acca Larentia, raised the children. When Remus and Romulus became adults, they killed Amulius and restored Numitor. They decided to establish a city; however, they quarreled, and Romulus killed his brother. Thus Rome began with a fratricide. The name of the city is generally considered to refer to Romulus, but there are other hypotheses. Jean-Jacques Rousseau suggested Greek “ῥώμη” (“rhōmē”), meaning “strength, vigor”. Another hypothesis refers the name to Roma, who supposedly was the daughter of Aeneas or Evander.  A modern theory of etymology holds that the name of the city (and perhaps the city itself, though this cannot be proven) is of Etruscan origin, deriving from rumon, “river”. The name “Romulus” was derived from the word “Rome”. The suffix “-ulus” is masculine and a diminutive, so “Romulus” means “the little boy from Rome.”

The original Italian people inhabited the Alban Hills. They later moved down into the valleys, which provided better land for agriculture. The area around the Tiber river was particularly advantageous and offered notable strategic resources: the river was a natural border on one side, and the hills could provide a safe defensive position on the other side. This position would also have enabled the Latins to control the river and the commercial and military traffic on it from the natural observation point at Isola Tiberina. Moreover, road traffic could be controlled since Rome was at the intersection of the principal roads to the sea coming from Sabinum (in the northeast) and Etruria (to the northwest). The development of the town is presumed to have started from the development of separate small villages, located at the tops of hills, that eventually accreted to form Rome. In any case, the location that was to become the city of Rome was inhabited by Latin settlers from various regions, farmers and pastoralists, as evidenced by differences in pottery and burial techniques. Although recent studies suggest that the Quirinal hill was very important in ancient times, the first hill to be inhabited seems to have been the Palatine (therefore confirming the legend), which is also at the center of ancient Rome.

Bach Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor (Arr. for Piano by E.D’Albert)

Tags

Bach, Bronzino, car, Kandinsky, Louise Bourgeois, MBAC, NGC, Ottawa, piano, Salviati, Spider

I had a good day today, the three classes I thought on paintings from the National Gallery of Canada went very well. The Kids and teachers were interested and asked good questions. I spoke on the Italian Renaissance painters Salviati and Bronzino, two of my favourite Renaissance painter. Then jumped to the Impressionists with Monet and Gauguin and then to Kandinsky where I introduce the concept of how science and astronomy, geometry etc can play a role in the composition of paintings. I tried Magritte but it is very difficult for an audience of 8 to 12 year old, too many challenges to established social class concept which dictates that Art must be safe. I only have 55 minutes and I need to keep it moving. I also told them the story of Maman by Canadian Artist Louise Bourgeois, the giant spider is just outside the National Gallery and the kids always like to hear about it, they all know it.

Maman is a tribute to the mother of Louise Bourgeois who was a weaver by trade and the eight eggs she carries are the brothers and sisters of Bourgeois. The idea that this spider can be associated to her mother and her work is a challenge for those kids who come from middle-class background, it also challenges and may contradict what their parents told them about Art. Never a bad thing to contradict Mom and Dad, after all they are just 10-11 years old and in just a few years they will enter those rebellious years.

I had Angela Hewitt playing this piano piece by J.S.Bach on my way back to the reception for Volunteers Week at the National Gallery of Canada. This piece is usually done on organ but I find it so much more relaxing on piano and it does not take away any of the beauty of the composition. I do listen almost exclusively to classical music and I am often out of the loop on popular music. Have a listen it is quite nice.

I also found this recording with Maestro Leopold Stokowski one of the great conductors of the XXth Century. His arrangements are always dramatic and fulsome.

Books I am reading right now

I have about a dozen books in hardcover and 2 on Kindle that are lined up for my reading pleasure. My reading tastes are all over the map, I will pick up a book based on my reading a few pages and deciding I like it. It can be almost any topic since I am interested in many things. There is no guarantee I will like every book I read, sometimes I start one and suddenly I dislike it, usually has to do with the writing style of the author. The little voice in my head will start saying why did he write this, or why is he so verbose we got the point 5 pages ago. Some historical novels may be interesting at first but suddenly too many irrelevant details or I may know the story already and am looking for fresh insight and there is none. All this to say that I am reading one book on the painter Titian which I bought as a remnant for $1.00 and another one on the British Princes, the four sons of King George V and the years between 1936 and 1946, the King dies and his wayward son Edward VIII ascends the throne and then Ms Simpson gets in the way, so do the Nazis and lots of sex, booze and drugs in a world full of empty people, but they have titles and more money than they need while the world is stuck in an economic depression and sliding towards war. It is an interesting story, those people may be Royals but so vacuous. I have another book to read on the life of Clement Greenberg the Art Critic, one book on Tom Thomson the great Canadian painter. I also have the complete fables by Charles Perrault with contextual text and explanation on the symbolism of his tales, and many more. So I got a full card of things to read. Oh I almost forgot I also have one new book on French spoken in Canada and French spoken in France. This is based on a study of language and pronunciation prior to 1789. It appears that linguists now believe that the French Civil War or Revolution brought about enormous changes in the way French was spoken in Continental France compared to Canada. In Canada the French population was cut off from France after 1763, Treaty of Paris which gave away North America to England in War reparation after the Seven Year War in Europe. So people who spoke French in Canada have kept the accent and pronunciation of the Aristocracy prior to 1789 whereas the French involved in their Civil War/Revolution rejected the old ways of speaking and invented a new French language to differentiate themselves from the overthrown Royal system. This means that in Canada we speak like Louis XIV at Versailles.

I will review some if there is anything good about them and can pass along.

The Senate Paintings

Tags

Beaverbrook, Canada., Canadian Army, EIIR, First World War, VRI, War artists

In 1857 the Chief Minister of the Legislative Council John A. MacDonald advised the Queen that Ottawa, a small lumber camp where the head of the Rideau Canal was located would make a wonderful spot for a new Capital of Canada. He used the talent and charm of Lady Anna-Maria Head, the wife of Sir Edmund Head, Governor General of the Province of Canada (Ontario-Quebec of today) to show the Queen the watercolours she had made of the hills around the Ottawa River. Sir Edmund lived in those days in Quebec City which was the seat of the Royal Government and had travelled to Ottawa simply to see the sight at the invitation of John A.MacDonald.

Early draft design for the West block of Parliament, mixture of French Chateau and Bavarian folly. The final design will have some elements of this draft.

Central block of Parliament in 1900. Wellington street is not paved yet.

The watercolours of Lady Head were quite beautiful and the Queen was happy to name this mud camp as the site of the future Capital of the Dominion of Canada. Construction of the Parliament buildings started on what will become Parliament Hill and the rest is history. It must have been quite incongruous to have such majestic buildings built in what was no more than a shipping and processing area for the lumber industry with a host of sawmills and other ugly industries and a population of rough necks, Bytown as Ottawa was known had more bars and brothels than schools or churches. The main buildings were completed in 1864 a full 3 years before Canada became a Unified country. The West block suffered a terrible fire in 1897 and was rebuilt the main Central block was totally destroyed by fire in 1916. In both cases the shellack used on the wood panels and floors of the building was to blame as it was highly flammable in an age where all men smoked pipes or cigars.

When the Central block of Parliament was rebuilt in 1922 after the terrible fire of 1916 which destroyed the entire building, both the House of Commons and the Senate were remodelled and enlarged given that the population of Canada had increased and the architectural style under George V (1910-1936) was very different from the fashion under his grandmother Queen Victoria who had died in 1901.

Parliament today, the Senate is on the right side of the photo and the house is   on the left side.

With the creation of a united Dominion of Canada in 1867 people started to think of themselves as Canadians and with the advent of the First World War and the enormous contribution of Canada, people were in a different frame of mind.  Though there was no Canadian Citizenship as such on paper, Canadians were still all British Subjects and will be until the Act of Parliament in 1949, people thought of themselves as Canadians. The First World War had demonstrated that we could achieve things and sometimes do better than other Countries, like Britain.

The interior decoration of the Parliament building reflects the changing history and circumstances in Canada.

I came upon the large paintings inside the Senate Chamber. For years I had assumed that they were part of a collection but did not know exactly which one and how they came about to being inside the Senate Chamber.

During the First World War (1914-1918) Canada contributed some 700,000 men to fight in Flanders. Given that we had no army prior to 1914 this was an extraordinary feat. This number represents 10% of the total population of the country at the time.

Because the army was put together very quickly there was no time to think of an Official War Art department. Other countries like Britain, France, Germany, Russia etc.. had War Artists who would sketch and paint on battlefields to record the action.

Max Aitken Lord Beaverbrook, a native of New Brunswick had moved to England where he had become the first Press Baron and a Member of Parliament in Westminster. Something you could do back then, you could run for Parliament in Ottawa or London. He set-up a Canadian War Art program and recruited Canadian artists, mostly soldiers who had been wounded to return to the battlefield to sketch and record Canadian  troops in action.

At the end of the War some 1000 paintings and sketches formed what became known as the Beaverbrook Canadian War Memorial Fund Collection. Many of the paintings are considered to be controversial and have not been shown since 1919. Others were considered acceptable by the politicians in Parliament and have been on display.

In the Senate several large canvasses where hung in 1922 and have remained ever since.

Landing of the First Canadian Division at Saint-Nazaire 1915 by Edgar Bundy.

Mobile Veterinary Unit in France by Algernon Talmage

Railway construction in France by Leonard Richmond

Arras, the dead city by James Kerr-Lawson

The cloth Hall Ypres by James Kerr-Lawson

The Watch on the Rhine by Sir William Rothenstein 

Returning to the reconquered land by Sir George Clausen

On leave by Claire Atwood

None of the above named artists are Canadians, all are British but were recruited by Lord Beaverbrook to work on the Canadian War Art project. Other paintings are in the National Gallery and in the Canadian War Museum many are still in storage in both museum.

Sacrifice by Charles Sims is an allegorical painting about death and the destruction of battle. We are standing behind the cross with Christ. The mother and child group represents rebirth and regeneration. This painting was only exhibited once in 1919 and then never again until 2000. The angle is strange because it is hanged high on a narrow balcony in the Canadian War Museum. The 9 Coat of Arms at the top represent the Provinces of Canada at the time in 1918. The message is powerful and like other paintings like FOR WHAT by Frederick Varley was very unpopular with the Prime Minister at the time Sir Robert Borden who would have preferred a happy triumphant message.

Finally here is a newly installed stain glass window in the Foyer of the Senate Chamber in Parliament to mark the Diamond Jubilee of H.M. Elizabeth II as Queen of Canada. The window faces South it was installe in 2013.

The stain glass window shows Victoria on the left side with her Coat of Arms and an image of Parliament in 1867. The right pane shows Elizabeth II with her Coat of Arms which includes Maple Leafs and the Parliament as it is today. She will be 89 years old on 21 April 2015 and in September will be the longest reigning Monarch in Canadian and British history.

Parliament, Parlement

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Canada., House of Commons, Ottawa, Parliament, Senate

Today we had what was billed as a private tour of the Central block of Parliament. The entire precinct of Parliament in Ottawa is currently going under a major $3 Billion dollar renovation. The West Block and East Block where built in 1864 and the Central block was rebuilt after the great fire of 1916. The other buildings of the Precinct like Confederation block and the old Metropolitan Life building and the old Bank of Montreal and the old Train Station are also part of the project since all those buildings will now house offices and a grand reception hall. The work is painstaking, our neighbour David works on the renovations, his job is to clean the stone work of the West block with a laser. What he has done so far is wonderful, it is a very large building, the stone is sandstone colour with a mix of pink granite. All the roofs are copper with intricate iron work which is very complex work. The East block and the West block are high Victorian Gothic style whereas the Central block is Canadian Gothic, the main central block houses the House of Commons and the Senate and the Library of Parliament. I use to work in Parliament, it was my first job working on the Hill. I loved that job and it was so nice. Today as we stood in the Ceremonial Hall under the Peace Tower I thought everything looked small and dingy. I do not know why but it did. Our guide was atrocious, I could have given the tour. Why do we have employees who are trained to give tours unable to explain anything and do not know the history of the buildings. I know they are moving out in two years while the main central block will be renovated but it all had a sad look about it. It could also be that we have had 10 years of Harper the worst Prime Minister this country has ever seen. I almost regretted going today, the House and Senate are in recess now until next week. Despite the fact no politicians are around there are regiments of guards everywhere. It is not the same place anymore, it use to be a place for Canadians to come and see the work of their Parliament, it now feels like a private club with well armed bouncers.

Because the House is not sitting the lights were not on so despite the large windows and bright sunshine the halls were gloomy. The Senate Chamber had no light inside we could barely see anything. Again guards everywhere, nervous and jumpy. Most visitors are families with small kids or seniors. I was not impressed at all with this visit.

One person asked about the colours in both the House of Commons and in the Senate. The House has a green carpet and the seat are in green leather whereas the Senate as a red carpet and the seats are in dark red. The guide explained that she thought the green colour in the House was because it was a colour used in London at Westminster and red in the Senate represents the Queen. What?!? I cannot believe that no one told her that Red is the Crown and Green is the Commons (people), traditional colours.

Same with the many sculptures seen everywhere, she either was not sure or gave a short answer. Many people wanted to know where the crazed gunman had been shot on 22 October 2015. Our guide gave us the bureaucratize answer instead of simply pointing out as I did where he had been shot. It is apparently a State Secret, really its on tape everyone saw it. Had she been clever she could have diverted the conversation  to the purpose of our visit instead of giving us the Official Blah Blah.

I also found the guards rude and menacing with the public. Again I find that offensive, this is Parliament not some high security secret place. The openness of the place and the Official but friendly atmosphere of years past is gone. It use to be such a different place.

Canadian Senate Chamber

Opening of Parliament in 1939 by the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth

The earliest plaque with the four original provinces, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

The Senate Foyer with the paintings of various Sovereigns. Here George V, King and Emperor. The Foyer has all the Canadian Kings and Queens from George III.

Here George VI and Queen Elizabeth II

Library of Parliament with the white marble statue of a young Queen Victoria

Main Entrance Hall of Parliament

House of Commons, Ottawa

Found a little treasure

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Rione Parione, Rome

I subscribe to many sites, mostly Italian language ones on Italy, Rome, archeology and history, hotels, restaurants and sights. Not to mention weekly information on art exhibits and cultural events. So I am on top of it as they say, if I wanted to fly to Italy tomorrow morning I would know what to do and where to go, no mysteries for me.

I found on FB a site owned by this Italian fellow who appears to live in Rome. He posted 2 films I find interesting for the fact that it shows the City in 1955 some 60 years ago and 10 years after the end of the Second World War. Italy was ruined by the war and poverty in 1955 was common everywhere. Italy was a new Republic, the Monarchy had been abolished by referendum in 1946, the King exiled. Mussolini was dead and gone but not forgotten.

As I look at the films what strikes me is how little car traffic there is in the streets, that is very significant compared to today. The other point is how the city has not changed in 60 years, nothing ever seems to change in Rome, except for maybe repainting or repairing a building or a change in business activities. Per example one of the short films shows typical businesses in a specific old neighbourhood, mostly cottage industry owned by families. Today these places are now coffee shops, restaurants or antique dealers. Otherwise it is all the same, maybe this is why I like Rome so much, it stays the same and does not give in to what is fashionable one moment and gone the next. There is also a certain elegance to these old buildings. If you google map the name of the streets you will see what they look like today and notice what I am speaking of.

One film shows the Chiostro del Bramante which today is a very nice museum with a good restaurant. You also have street scenes and entrances of old Palaces many converted into apartments but the entrance keep their antique columns and other artefacts which has a nice touch to the building. There is one scene where you see Piazza del Orologio (Clock tower square) we almost ended up taking an apartment in that area with a view of that clock which chimes the hours loudly.

See Via dei Coronari or Via del Banco di Santo Spirito both near the Tiber River in Rome.

<div id=”fb-root”></div><script>(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3″; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));</script><div class=”fb-video” data-allowfullscreen=”true” data-href=”https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=343363022528921&amp;set=p.343363022528921&amp;type=1″><div class=”fb-xfbml-parse-ignore”><blockquote cite=”https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=343363022528921&amp;set=p.343363022528921&amp;type=1″><a href=”https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=343363022528921&amp;set=p.343363022528921&amp;type=1″>Roma sconosciuta – Rioni Ponte e Parione</a><p>Roma sconosciuta – Rioni Ponte e Parione di Antonello Falqui (1955) – Prima parteRai StoriaSeconda Parte https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=343374532527770</p>Posted by <a href=”https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=343363022528921&amp;set=p.343363022528921&amp;type=1″>Roma ieri oggi</a> on Wednesday, March 25, 2015</blockquote></div></div>

Part two

Shows more of the neighbourhood, including a Countess in her studio painting with the  dome of Saint-Peter in the background, for inspiration perhaps. Views are everything in Rome and lots of nice panoramic views can be had as if the city was designed that way.

<div id=”fb-root”></div><script>(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3″; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));</script><div class=”fb-video” data-allowfullscreen=”true” data-href=”https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=343374532527770&amp;set=vb.153396248192267&amp;type=1″><div class=”fb-xfbml-parse-ignore”><blockquote cite=”https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=343374532527770&amp;set=vb.153396248192267&amp;type=1″><a href=”https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=343374532527770&amp;set=vb.153396248192267&amp;type=1″>Roma sconosciuta – Rioni Ponte e Parione</a><p>Roma sconosciuta – Rioni Ponte e Parione di Antonello Falqui (1955) – Seconda ed ultima parteRai StoriaPrima Parte https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=343363022528921&amp;set=p.343363022528921</p>Posted by <a href=”https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=343374532527770&amp;set=vb.153396248192267&amp;type=1″>Roma ieri oggi</a> on Wednesday, March 25, 2015</blockquote></div></div>