Sunday, November 27, 2016

Cats in Art: Church Fresco of Seeing Eye Dog

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art.  Having moved on from Stefano Zuffi's marvelous work, The Cat in Art, I am now using some ideas from Caroline Bugler's equally impressive book, The Cat/3500 Years of the Cat in Art.   

After several posts on the art of Chardin, I am diverting into some art that the bride and I just saw in Italy on a wonderful visit in October to the Amalfi Coast.


Here we have a series of three shots of the same painting, each one taken successively closer.  These are from the Duomo di Salerno (Salerno Cathedral) and date from the 1600s.


That's a dog, you say?  You'd be right.  For the first time ever here at my regular Sunday Cats in Art post, I will feature a dog.  Why?  Because it was beautiful art.


We visited a church in the lovely town of Salerno that supposedly contains some bones of St. Matthew, one of Jesus' twelve disciples.  You head down under the sanctuary to a crypt...but what a crypt it is!  Rather than being small and dank, this is a huge open room  with arches in the low ceiling, each of which has been painted with a Biblical scene involving St. Matthew.

Which Christmas approaching I figured it might be appropriate to use an image of Jesus healing a blind man:




And finally, the puppy close up:



What makes these frescoes great is that they are only some 20' above you, thus rendering them--to me and the bride--much more impactful than the famous paintings waaaaay up on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican in Rome.  Each circular painting here in Salerno is perhaps 8-10" across.   I didn't count but there are a couple of dozen at least.

Tucked away here.  Utterly stunning.

[Gary note: With my Cats in Arts posts, I encourage you to scope out the art appreciation site Artsy (I have no financial interest in the site, I just like it), where you can explore many aspects of the world of art.  You'll certainly be entertained and enlightened!] 




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