Silent Sunday – Isle of Wight
Category Archives: Sculpture Saturday – Silent Sunday
Photos showing sculptures in all media and photos depicting silence anywhere in the world.
Sculpture Saturday: Saltzburg
I loved the statue but I committed one of the biggest sins in photography by not managing to cut out the post on the right which makes it look as though my cyclist is holding it up. My photoshop skills aren’t up to removing it either!
Link to Sculpture Saturday
Silent Sunday – Austria
SILENT SUNDAY
The bells were ringing when I took this photo in Stresa in Italy, a few years ago, so it was a Sunday. In the garden it was silent but outside it was a typical Italian Sunday, the animated passeggiata, the queues at the gelateria, and the family groups, grandparents to babes in arms, all out to enjoy Sunday.
Sculpture Saturday
Sleeping Child by By Håkon Anton Fagerås.
This sculpture of a sleeping child is said to symbolize Norwegian optimism, survivability, and future life.
The design incorporates a separate pedestal, a rock from Hiroshima’s ground zero given earlier to Narvik by the mayor of Hiroshima. One of three peace sculptures in Narvik it was dedicated in 1956, 1995 and 2006 to remember the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.
SILENT SUNDAY
Saturday Sulpture:
Outside the Caen-Normandie Museum of WWll in Caen, France.
Based on a photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt which appeared in an issue of Life magazine in 1945, this sculpture has been much criticised by women’s rights groups since it was erected at the city-owned Mémorial de Caen. The French group, Osez le Féminisme, said at the time “we cannot accept that the Mémorial de Caen holds up a sexual assault as a symbol of peace,” but the city-owned Memorial de Caen refused to take it down. They based their objection on the fact that the sailor had been observed kissing ‘all he met, young and old’.
There are many copies of this sculpture (by Seward Johnson) in other parts of the world.
Silent Sunday
It was a silent Sunday until something stirred in the water: a fish, an insect, a thing from the deep? Whatever it was, it caused a ring of ripples in the water.
Sculpture Saturday
In Spain for this Baroque Sculpture at the Casa de los dos Aguas in Valencia, the home of the Marquises of the same name. This mansion is now the home of the National Museum of Ceramics and Decorative Arts, and is located in one of the most central locations in the city, a Rococo nobility palace.
The interior is equally impressive, if not quite so ornate but I am always overwhelmed by the entrance which was made in 1745 and has reference to the two rivers of the Valencian community, the Turia and Jucar which are represented by two naked figures and the two urns of water at their feet, reference to the title of the Marquises (los dos aguas).
On one side are two crocodiles, a quiver of arrows and the water pouring from the vessel. On the other side is a reclining lion, another quiver of arrows and the representative vessel pouring water. I’ve enlarged only one of them (see below) just to show some of the detail without you having to click on the enlarging feature.
In the centre of the entrance is an image to the Virgin of the Rosary, patron saint of the House of Dos Aguas and at her foot kneel two women, one with a cornucopia of fruits and the other with a vessel from which pours coins. The whole is a riot of voluptuousness in true Rococo style. The virgin is a plaster copy made in 1855 as the original work disappeared at the end of the century previous.
The Museum is a worthwhile place to visit but if there is no time, the building of the Palacio de los dos Aguas is right in the centre of town and you can stand outside and look at it for free!
And one of the side panels in all its glory:
Saturday Sculpture: LIONS
Linked to Mind Over Memory who hosts this challenge.
First I offer you a real lion, the BIG DADDY Lion, the original MGM Lion.
Sorry. I know it isn’t a statue but I couldn’t resist this. I did start off with the bronze statue of the lion from the MGM Hotel in Las Vegas but I thought it paled beside the real thing so there you have it.
Now here are two sculpted Lions. The first one from Lucerne, Switzerland, was described by Mark Twain in his 1880 travelogue “A Tramp Abroad” as “The most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world”. A mortally wounded lion is carved into the wall of a sandstone quarry in the old part of the town, designed as a memorial to mercenary soldiers from central Switzerland who lost their lives defending the royal Tuileries and the family of Louis XVI in Paris in August 1792 during the French Revolution. Six hundred died in their defence and 140 more died afterwards.
The 6m x 10m long monument was designed by the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen and carved by German stonemason Lucas Ahorn out of the sandstone rock in 1820-21.
Next we move to Spain, to Cordoba where there are so many statues it is easy to miss this one, but he is part of the Triunfo de San Rafael column, the most elaborate of many devotional columns in Cordoba commemorating the town’s guardian angel. The column at the center of a scenic viewpoint was begun in 1765 and it was finally finished in 1871. He’s quite an ugly old lion but I feel sorry for him as he looks uncared for and few stop to admire him as they gaze upwards at the shiny figure of the saint or rush across the bridge to photograph the more famous Mesquita.
MARI'S TRAVELS WITH HER CAMERA 