Assumption of the Virgin

Asunción de la Virgen

Puerto Limón
Boston
Valparaíso
Hamburg

Lemonade

 

 Psalms 51:12
“Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.”

The Assumption of the Virgin or Frari Assumption, popularly known as the Assunta,is a large altarpiece panel painting in oils by the Italian Renaissance artist Titian, painted in 1515–1518.

 

 

 The Assumption of Mary was a Catholic doctrine that remained optional in the early 16th century; it was not declared an article of faith until 1950. The Franciscan order whose church the Frari is, were always keen promoters of this and other aspects of Marian theology, in particular the related doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, then still a matter of live controversy. The doctrine held that the body of the Virgin Mary was "assumed" or moved physically into heaven "at the end of her earthly life". Most Catholics believed that this took place after a normal death (usually three days after in tradition), but some that Mary was still alive when it happened, a question that Munificentissimus Deus in 1950 was careful not to settle. At the base of the picture, glimpses of Mary's stone sarcophagus can be discreetly seen, allowing those believing in an assumption before death to ignore it or regard it as something else.

The broad composition of Titian's painting, with a group of apostles below a rising Mary, shown as alive, who moves towards a group of angels in heaven, follows earlier depictions in art, though such an imagined scene did not form part of the doctrine. The related scene of the Coronation of the Virgin in heaven had tended to be replaced by scenes showing the moment of the actual assumption, as here, which was often combined with it. Here the angel accompanying God the Father on the right holds out a crown, which he is about to place on her head.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 "In all these ways the Church gave imaginative expression to deep-seated human impulses. And it had another great strength which one may say was part of Mediterranean civilisation - or at any rate a legacy from the pagan Renaissance : it was not afraid of the human body. Titian's Assumption of the Virgin , a Baroque picture almost one hundred years before its time, was painted in the same period as his great celebrations of paganism. Early in the sixteenth century Titian had given his immense authority to this union of dogma and sensuality ; and when the first puritan influence of the Council of Trent was over, Titian's work was there to inspire both Rubens (who made superb copies of it) and Bernini. In their work the conflict between flesh and spirit is gloriously resolved. It would be hard to imagine a more comfortingly physical presence than the figure of Charity on Bernini's tomb of Urban VIII. And in Rubens's picture of that extremely un-Protestant subject Sinners saved by Penitence, he has achieved in the repentant Magdalene, and even in the figure of Christ himself, a noble sensuality, perfectly at one with an unquestioning faith."~~~Kenneth Clark: CIVILISATION.Ch.7 Grandeur and Obedience

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chess: "Puerto Limón" "Boston" "Valparaíso" "Hamburg" "Lemonade"

Berlin

Berlin
Sweden

Bernini

1 John 5:7
“For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”

David byBernini

"I think the answer is that Roman buildings those of Bernini in particular - have a warmth of feeling that French Classicism lacks. In the end they appeal to the emotions, and give abstract form to the same popular sentiment that supported the Catholic revival; whereas Perrault's facade reflects the triumph of an authoritarian state..."~~~Kenneth Clark: CIVILISATION. Ch.9 The Pursuit of Happiness

Joss Forsberg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chess: "Berlin" "Bernini" "Sweden"

Gibraltar

Gibraltar
Robe
Castle
Castilla

Botafogo

Exodus 13:21-22
“And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night: He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people.”

 

 

Inés Palacios
 

 

 

Fiorella Arbenz 

 

 "IN THE LATTER YEARS of the sixteenth century, 1567–1597, two fabled mariners, one Spanish, one English, waged an incessant duel throughout the Caribbean. The two men fought at the extreme western end at Nombre de Dios, and beyond the northern limits at Vera Cruz in Mexico. They fought on the isthmus, the approaches to Panamá, at little ports on the coast of South America and at the huge harbor of San Juan in Puerto Rico. But most often they faced each other at Cartagena, the walled city that became in the early 1500s the capital of Spain’s empire in the Caribbean. In heritage, training, religion, manner and personal appearance, these men differed conspicuously, but in personal heroism and eagerness to defend their honor they were identical."~~~James A. Michener: CARIBBEAN: Ch.4 The Spanish Lake

 

 

Chess: "Gibraltar" "Robe" "Castle" "Castilla" "Botafogo"

Florida, Ice & Farm

Honduras
Murmansk
Mar-a-Lago
Woodstock
Florida, Ice & Farm
Yggdrasil

1 Thessalonians 4:16
“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:”

 

 

 

"To attain
the highth and depth of thy Eternal ways."~~~Milton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chess: "Honduras" "Murmansk" "Florida, Ice & Farm" "Yggdrasil" "Woodstock" "Mar-a-Lago"

 

 

 

The Illiad

LA ILIADA
IF
Identity
Iceland
Ignatius
Idaho Falls
Illiad 

John 1:17
“For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”

 

 

 

 

 "The main portal of Chartres is one of the most beautiful congregations of carved figures in the world [38]. The longer you look at it, the more moving incidents, the more vivid details you discover. I suppose the first thing that strikes anyone is the row of pillar people. In naturalistic terms, as bodies, they are impossible, and the fact that one believes in them is a triumph of art. Figures had been made into columns since the Cnidian treasury at Delphi, but never so narrowly compressed and elongated as they are here - except perhaps at St Denis, because there is evidence that the master who carved them had worked for Suger before he came on to Chartres. He was not only a sculptor of genius, but one of great originality. He must have begun carving when style was dominated by the violent twisting rhythms of Cluny and Toulouse; and he has created a style as still and restrained and classical as the Greek sculptors of the sixth century.
The man who carved the pillar of Souillac, although a great artist, cannot be called a representative of civilisation. We have no such doubts about the master-mason of Chartres. One can see that his classic style was a personal creation when one compares the figures by the master himself - all of them are in the central door - with those of his assistants who worked on the doors either side. They could follow the outline of his columnar figures, but when it came to draperies they reverted to the curls and spirals of southern Romanesque, which are meaningless in their new context, whereas the chief master's style is absolutely Greek in the simplicity and precision of every fold. Was it really Greek - I mean Greek in derivation? Were these reed-like draperies, the thin straight lines of the fluted folds, the zigzag hems, and the whole play of texture which so obviously recall a Greek archaic figure, arrived at independently? Or had the Chartres master seen some fragments of early Greek sculpture in the south of France? For various masons I am quite certain that he had."~~~Kenneth Clark: CIVILISATION. Ch.2 The Great Thaw

 

 

 

 

 

 Chess: "IF" “Identity” “Iceland” “Ignatius” “Idaho Falls” "Illiad"

Phraseology:
-IF I were to go, I would be late.
-Even IF that's true, what should we do?
-She wil sing only IF she is paid.
-Ask IF he will come.
-IF she had only come earlier!
-IF she ever does that again!

 

 

Chateau Frontenac

St. Lawrence

Montreal
Chateau Frontenac

 

Psalms 25:2
“O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me.”

 

Chateau Frontenac

 

 

 

 "The youth studied  the faces of his companions, ever on the watch to detect kindred emotions"~~~Stephen Crane  

Chess: "St. Lawrence" "Montreal" "Chateau Frontenac"

Greenwich Meridian

Green Lantern

Greenwich Meridian

Linterna Verde 

Claro 

Crystal Clear 

Romans 8:2

“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”

 

 

Green Lantern 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chess: "Green Lantern" "Linterna Verde" "Greenwich Meridian" "Claro" "Crystal Clear"

Santa Fé de Bogotá

Santa Fé de Bogotá

Café-Coffee

Barranquilla

 

 Psalms 8:9
“O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!”

 

 

 

 "a body politique never dieth"~~~Milton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 "a body politique never dieth"~~~Milton

 

 

 

 

 

Chess: "Colombia" "Bogotá" "Barranquilla"

Littleton

Omega

Colorado Springs 

Rhode Island Red 🐓
Rhodesian Ridgeback

Mickey Mouse
Littleton, COLORADO

¡OK!

Prince WILLIAM
Jorge GUILLERMO 

Romans 6:14
“For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”

 

 

 

 “Aubrey Beardsley introduced a new sense of rhythm into black and white art” ~~~Holbrook Jackson 

 

 “The rat, like men, has become practically omnivorous—it eats anything that lets it.”~~~Hans Zinsser

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Chess: "Rhode Island" "Littleton" "Omega" "Rhodesian Ridgeback" "Mickey Mouse" "Jorge Guillermo" "Prince William" "OK"

 

 ' "A diablero, they say, is a brujo who changes into any form he wants to adopt. But everybody knows that is pure bull. The old people here are full of stories about diableros. You won't find that among us younger people."
"What kind of animal do you think it was, dona Luz?" I asked a middle-aged woman.
"Only God knows that for sure, but I think it was not a coyote. There are things that appear to be coyotes,
but are not. Was the coyote running, or was it eating?"
"It was standing most of the time, but when I first saw it, I think it was eating something."
"Are you sure it was not carrying something in its mouth?"
"Perhaps it was. But tell me, would that make any difference?"
"Yes, it would. If it was carrying something in its mouth it was not a coyote."
"What was it then?"
"'It was a man or a woman."
"What do you call such people, dona Luz?"
She did not answer. I questioned her for a while longer, but without success. Finally she said she did not know. I asked her if such people were called diableros, and she answered that "diablero" was one of the names given to them.  '~~~Carlos Castaneda. THE TEACHINGS OF DON JUAN.

 

 

 

TRIGGER-TIGER, RIFLE-TRIFLE

Tierra del Fuego

Trigger

Tiger

Trifle

Gatillo

Disparador 

 

Proverbs 21:28
“A false witness shall perish: but the man that heareth speaketh constantly.”

 

 

 

 

 "What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?"~~~William Blake. THE TIGER

 

  

 Psalms 107:1
“O give thanks unto the LORD, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 "he had come to know every triffling feature that bordered the great river"~~~Mark Twain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 "En el principio de los tiempos, tan dócil a la vaga especulación y a las inapelables cosmogonías, no habrá habido cosas poéticas o prosaicas. Todo sería un poco mágico. Thor no era dios del trueno; era el trueno y el dios." ~~~Jorge Luis Borges. EL ORO DE LOS TIGRES. Prólogo

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Chess: "Trigger" "Gatillo" "Tierra del Fuego" "Trifle"

 

 Chess: "California" "Cáliz" "Chalice"

 

 

 

 

 "En un plato de trigo,
tres tristes tigres,
trigo comieron"

 

 

 

 

 

 THE TIGER

By William Blake

Published in 1794 in Songs of Experience
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And, when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water`d heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?
Tiger, tiger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Chess: "Trigger" "Gatillo"

Theme
.......“The Tiger,” by William Blake (1757-1827), presents a question that embodies the theme: Who created the tiger? Was it the kind and loving God who made the lamb? Or was it Satan? Blake presents his question in Lines 3 and 4:
    What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Blake realizes, of course, that God made all the creatures on earth. However, to express his bewilderment that the God who created the gentle lamb also created the terrifying tiger, he includes Satan as a possible creator while raising his rhetorical questions, notably the one he asks in Lines 5 and 6:
    In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thy eyes?
Deeps appears to refer to hell and skies to heaven. In either case, there would be fire--the fire of hell or the fire of the stars.
.......Of course, there can be no gainsaying that the tiger symbolizes evil, or the incarnation of evil, and that the lamb (Line 20) represents goodness, or Christ. Blake's inquiry is a variation on an old philosophical and theological question: Why does evil exist in a universe created and ruled by a benevolent God? Blake provides no answer. His mission is to reflect reality in arresting images. A poet’s first purpose, after all, is to present the world and its denizens in language that stimulates the aesthetic sense; he is not to exhort or moralize. Nevertheless, the poem does stir the reader to deep thought. Here is the tiger, fierce and brutal in its quest for sustenance; there is the lamb, meek and gentle in its quest for survival. Is it possible that the same God who made the lamb also made the tiger? Or was the tiger the devil's work?
Meter
The poem is in trochaic tetrameter with catalexis at the end of each line. Here is an explanation of these technical terms:
    Tetrameter Line: a poetry line usually with eight syllables but sometimes seven. Trochaic Foot: A pair of syllables--a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. Catalexis: The absence of a syllable in the final foot in a line. In Blake’s poem, an unstressed syllable is absent in the last foot of each line. Thus, every line has seven syllables, not the conventional eight.
The following illustration using the first two lines of the poem demonstrates tetrameter with four trochaic feet, the last one catalectic:
    .....1...........2...........3...............4 TIger, | TIger, | BURN ing | BRIGHT .....1...........2...........3...............4 IN the | FOR ests | OF the | NIGHT
Notice that the fourth foot in each line eliminates the conventional unstressed syllable (catalexis). However, this irregularity in the trochaic pattern does not harm the rhythm of the poem. In fact, it may actually enhance it, allowing each line to end with an accented syllable that seems to mimic the beat of the maker’s hammer on the anvil.

 

The Teachings of Don Juan

THE TEACHINGS OF DON JUAN
SEGOVIA AQUEDUCT
Las arcadas

Psalms 95:6
“O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker.”

 

Matthew 11:11
“Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than JOHN THE BAPTIST: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

Segovia aqueduct

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ramses II

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chess: "Segovia" "Las Arcadas"   

Ozymandias of Egypt
P.B. Shelley
I MET a traveller from an antique land   
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone   
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,   
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown   

And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command          
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read   
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,   
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed. 

  
And on the pedestal these words appear:   
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:   
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"   
Nothing beside remains: round the decay  

 
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,   
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Meaning
‘Ozymandias’ carries an extended metaphor throughout the entire poem. All around the traveler is desert — nothing is green or growing; the land is barren. The statue, however, still boasts of the accomplishments this civilization had in the past. The desert represents the fall of all empires — nothing powerful and rich can ever stay that strong forever. This metaphor is made even more commanding in the poem by Shelley’s use of an actual ruler. He utilizes an allusion to a powerful ruler in ancient Egypt to show that even someone so all-powerful will eventually fall.
‘Ozymandias’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley describes a traveler’s reaction to the half-buried, worn-out statue of the great pharaoh, Ramses II.
In this poem, the speaker describes meeting a traveler “from an antique land.” The title, ‘Ozymandias,’ notifies the reader that this land is most probably Egypt since Ozymandias was what the Greeks called Ramses II. He was a great and terrible pharaoh in ancient Egypt.
The traveler tells a story to the speaker. In the story, he describes visiting Egypt. There, he saw a large and intimidating statue of Ramses in the desert. He can tell that the sculptor must have known his subject well because it is obvious from the statue’s face that this man was a great leader, but one who could also be very vicious.
He describes his sneer as having a “cold command.” Even though the leader was probably very great, it seems that the only thing that survives from his realm is this statue, which is half-buried and somewhat falling apart.
Ozymandias’ is considered to be a Petrarchan sonnet, even though the rhyme scheme varies slightly from the traditional sonnet form. Structurally all sonnets contain fourteen lines and are written in iambic pentameter.
The rhyme scheme of ‘Ozymandias’ is ABABACDC EDEFEF. This rhyme scheme differs from the rhyme scheme of a traditional Petrarchan sonnet, whose octave (the first eight lines of the poem) usually has a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA. Its sestet (the final six lines of the sonnet) does not have an assigned rhyme scheme, but it usually rhymes in every other line or contains three different rhymes.
Shelley’s defiance of this rhyme scheme helps to set apart ‘Ozymandias’ from other Petrarchan sonnets, and it is perhaps why this poem is so memorable. The reason he did this may have been to represent the corruption of authority or lawmakers.
Literary Devices
Shelley plays with a number of figurative devices in order to make the sonnet more appealing to readers. These devices include:
Enjambment: Shelley uses this device throughout the text. For example, it occurs in lines 2-8. By enjambing the lines, the poet creates a surprising flow.
Alliteration: It occurs in “an antique,” “stone/ Stand,” “sunk a shattered,” “cold command,” etc.
Metaphor: The “sneer of cold command” contains a metaphor. Here, the ruler’s contempt for his subjugates is compared to the ruthlessness of a military commander.
Irony: Shelley uses this device in the following lines, “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!/ Nothing beside remains.” The following lines also contain this device.
Synecdoche: In the poem, the “hand” and “heart” collectively hint at the pharaoh, Ozymandias, as a whole. It is a use of synecdoche.
Allusion: The line “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings” is an allusion to the actual inscription described in the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus’s Bibliotheca historica.
histórica

Mount Rainier

Mount Rainier
Seattle 

1 Corinthians 14:33
“For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.”

 

 

 

 

Mount Rainier (also known as Tahoma or Tacoma) glows blue and red on the evening of September 6th, 2020. This is the northwestern slope seen from the window of a Cessna 172. The mountain's snow and ice is low at the end of the summer.

Chess: "Mount Rainier" "Seattle"

Atlantic

Atlantic

Athene

 1Thessalonians 5:9
“For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 "Sage he stood,
With Atlantean shoulders fit to bear
The weight of mightiest monarchies."~~~Milton

 

 

 

 

Chess: "Atlantic" "Athene"

"Unlike the earlier wanderers, the Vikings had a rather splendid mythology, romanticised for us by Wagner. Their runic stones give one the feeling of magical power. They were the last people of Europe to resist Christianity. There are Viking gravestones from quite late in the Middle Ages that have symbols of Wotan on one side and Christian symbols on the other - what is called hedging your bets. A famous ivory casket in the British Museum has Weyland the Smith on the left and the Adoration of the Magi on the right. When one reads scarifying tales of them, one must remember that they were almost illiterate, and the written evidence about them was recorded by Christian monks. Of course they were brutal and rapacious. All the same, they have a place in European civilisation, because these pirates were not merely destructive, and their spirit did contribute something important to the western world. It was the spirit of Columbus. They set out from a base and with unbelievable courage and ingenuity they got as far as Persia, via the Volga and the Caspian Sea, and they put their runic writing on one of the lions at Delos, and then returned home with all their loot, including coins from Samarkand and a Chinese Buddha. The sheer technical skill of their journeys is a new achievement for the western world ; and if one wants a symbol of Atlantic man that distinguishes him from Mediterranean man, a symbol to set against the Greek temple, it is the Viking ship. The Greek temple is static and solid. The ship is mobile and light. Two of the smaller Viking ships, which were used as burial chambers, have survived. One of them, the Gokstad ship, was intended for long voyages and in fact a replica of it crossed the Atlantic in 1894. It looks as unsinkable as a gigantic water-lily. The other, the Oseberg ship [11], seems to have been more like a ceremonial barge, and was filled with splendid works of craftsmanship. The carving on its prow has that flow of endless line that was still to underlie the great ornamental style we call Romanesque. When one considers the Icelandic sagas, which are among the great books of the world, one must admit that the Norsemen produced a culture. But was it civilisation? The monks of Lindisfarne wouldn't have said so, nor would Alfred the Great, nor the poor mother trying to settle down with her family on the banks of the Seine.

Civilisation means something more than energy and will and creative power: something the early Norsemen hadn't got, but which, even in their time, was beginning to reappear in Western Europe. How can I define it? Well, very shortly, a sense of permanence. The wanderers and the invaders were in a continual state of flux. They didn't feel the need to look forward beyond the next March or the next voyage or the next battle. And for that reason it didn't occur to them to build stone houses, or to write books."~~~Kenneth Clark: CIVILISATION. Ch.1 The Skin of Our Teeth