Life in Poetry reading, writing, reflecting

Life in Poetry reading, writing, reflecting
April showers bring May flowers

Thursday, 1 August 2019

⌗FMF, Friday 26th July 2019, MIDDLE

Welcome to Five Minute Friday.
If you would like to join up with Kate, start-here


Today MIDDLE.



Middle English.

Chaucer's Canterbury Tales always fascinate me, even though the Middle English was hardeous at times. It transported me back in time to a place when people's preoccupations were either basic or spiritual.
The pilgrims on this, uncannily modern, road trip are endearing, funny and sometimes downright annoying. The perfect Human Beings.
I discovered these fireside stories about the same time that I visited Venice at 12 with my class. I spent that year documenting an enormous file on the Lagoon's origins, history, politics, economy and of course Renaissance Art.
I was under the spell of the earlier artists. Fra Angelico's frescoes, discovered first in Venice, then in Florence the following year with the same class. Then came UCELLO and his colourful battle fields packed with side-stories of minor characters in corners and behind the main scene. Botticelli was an allegory master who left the beaten path of religious representations to offer Nature a rightful place alongside human activities.
The architecture fulfilled my tastebuds for the Beautiful : palaces, gothic churches, campaniles. The explosion of gold and intricate mosaics encased within the Basilico San Marco.
No middle ground in Venice. Each canal, waterway, street, alley offer unsuspected treasures, amongst which I was all to glad to get lost and forget the average existence awaiting me back home.
©susanbauryrouchard


Palazzo Venice, July 2019

Paradiso by Tintoretto
Palazzo Ducale



School of Ucello, Naval Battle

The Grand Canal
Santa Maria del Salute

Basilica San Marco
the Four Bronze Horses
July 2019

Jacco Gardner, Hypnophobia, listen here


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