I haven’t written for three weeks but a lot has happened it that time. This post is from notes I wrote straight after visiting a wonderful exhibition of portraits, when I was recovering in a nearby restaurant.
I very nearly cried in the gallery. It was overwhelming. I feel as if I have just met hundreds of people from the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Their fixed gazes, some gentle, benign, some confident, enquiring, searching others hauty, with imperious Medicis. I can understand why some cultures felt photographs were taking or trapping the souls of the sitters. The life-like quality of many of these paintings made me feel the otherwise long-dead denizens were still with me under their soft spot-lights in the dimly-lit, black-walled room. I feel now as if my brain and feelings have been seriously over-stretched and I need to lie down in a dark rom for a bit to recover.
Before seeing the Faces of the Renaissance exhibition I saw some of the Bode Museum main collection, itself pretty overwhelming. For example, a carved wooden (poplar) Madonna and child from 1199, apparently so simle, and quite exquisite. At times I had to march through galleries deliberately ignoring fantastic works of art, many centuries old, because the detail, the imagination, the craftsmanship and what it said about the civilisation was all too much. One marble bust from the fifteenth century had soft, delicate cloth and fine lace carved in it. An the extraordinarily thin and slightly rumpled collar looked as if it had just been ironed as though you could easily fold it, rather than it being made of un-bendable cold hard marble. It was one of the many exhibits to take my breath away. As I looked at the exhibits, it struck me hard how patient the artists and artisans must have been, as well as at the top of thier trees in terms of skills. The date on my faviourite Madonna and child amused me: January 1199, as if one man could make such a thing in only one month!
My brainstorm is gently subsiding. I’m sitting in the lovely old restaurant, Deponie, eating comforting home-made tomato and mozzarella soup, in dim light. The sky is grey (even though it is only 2 p.m.) and there is a candle in front of me which flickers when anyone opens the front door or walks by. Deponie is built under the arches of the railway, walls packed with glass and pot bottles, china dolls heads, and the once white arched ceiling now dark brown from smoke. I now feel as if I’m back in the twenty first centruy amongst things I understand (well, sort of!). I’ve just noticed the sound of a train rumbling overhead going to Friedrichstrasse Bahnhof.
I have never had quite such a strong reaction to an exhibition and I’m trying to figure out why. Many exhibitions move me, because of their beauty, the new way to see things, the skill or whatever, but this was different. The faces were almost all very beautifully executed, even if the people themselves weren’t pretty. The level of detail was amazing. You might believe you could count every hair on someone’s head or their fur collar. Sometimes the proportions were a bit odd, with a big, well-proprtioned face and head but narrow shoulders. They were all in their best clothes, (to be fair, most of them only had best clothes) and jewellery, and again the details of these were stunning. As well as portraits there were busts, reliefs, books and medals. Many of the busts were life-like, from small children to old men, and not all looked formal. Some of them almost seemed like a celebration of odd physiogomy: big noses, long noses, up-turned noses, warty noses, long chins, fat chins, double chins: while others were the epitome of refined beauty. The symbols and additions within the portraits looked interesting.
I have just noticed the background music in the restaurant. It proves I ‘m back in Berlin from fifteenth century Florence or Venice.
Deponie is such a good place it even has newspapers and magazines on sticks! Now for the pud. There’s nothing like a large serving of Rote Gruetze mit Vanillasaus und Schlagsahnne to help you savour and live in the moment and stay in the present! Mmm. Lecker!!
Now fully restored and about 3kg heavier, I’m off to a sewing cafe to hire a with some fabric I cut out earlier. I think I understand a bit more about how some people with various neuro-diverse wiring experience overwhelming over-stimulation.
