I don't have a Fiat or a Lamborghini. Heck, I don't even drive.
That doesn't mean I haven't travelled to Italy using other vehicles.
Is it the flamboyance or the apparent order that makes sculpture so romantic?
There is not necessarily alot of either in sun-drenched Terra Australis Incognita ( 'Cognita'? ).
There are rocks and chains and shackles wherever you are.
An Italian garden may have its grandiose scale or its gaudy flower-pots. Nothing is different here, except time, which may be much older, if less recorded.
This section of a tree has antecedents stretching back far further than known history. The garden has a renaissance every day.
I like to have pieces around the garden that both disturb and complement it.
This is not an early Italian piece of engineering, but an Australian work-bench.
You have to look out for artefacts: you can never be sure if they've come up out of a volcano or a factory.
Joyously, both Italy and Australia have landscapes and flora that promise renewal (
renascita )
. The sun is strong in both countries. It has highlighted a magnificent civilisation in one, and it has blazed over the raw subtlety of the other.
just came over and i am founding you in a very italoaustralian mood...
ReplyDeletei like it...
its something about your absurd garden landscapes
and thinking and of course your sense of humor...
i like it : )
Faisal,
ReplyDeleteWhere do you find all these objects? They all have an amazing patina of been lovingly used.
Demie, I have loved Italy a long time. My grandparents travelled there when I was a boy, and would send me post-cards; and at school and university I studied Italian history and art. There are many Italians living in Australia, especially Melbourne, and I, like many others, love their warmth. They also have a sense of the absurd - like de Chirico - a spatial awareness, a sense of distance and of closeness...
ReplyDeleteMichael, like most things in my life, they turn up, or they do not. I believe, definitely, in our ability to select...you may not get what you'd planned for, but out of what you're given, to me, you must select the favourable...sometimes, what you get is raw. I have come to like the old, battered and disused, as much as because to me beauty is everywhere, as because the raw often tells more than the refined.
ReplyDeleteI have not had alot of choice...I grew up in an old, battered house, and had to find beauty there.
i love Italians and Italy too... they are warm and crazy
ReplyDelete( i am developing an affection for Australia(ns) too lately...)
i can only hope you feel the same about Greece and Greeks one day
-Giorgio de Chirico was after all born and educated there ; )
Demie, certainly, I could just have easily have written about Greece, which I also love.
ReplyDeletesuch objects to ponder as you encounter them in your garden.
ReplyDeleteSome beautiful textures here, Faisal. I was in Sicily last year for a walking holiday. It was so hot though that my friends and I generally sat and watched and listened and ate and drank. Remarkable place and I plan to return soon. (I should like to scramble up Etna while I'm still able). By the way did you have a chain gang working in your garden? Dave
ReplyDeleteYou should have to stop, in a garden, shouldn't you Velma? You'd want to. I want to. There is, in being in them, not just the recognition of work or skill, but the sheer apprehension, the slowing down, the acting as an observer, of being humble enough to be an audience.
ReplyDeleteDave, I started off with the newly acquired wood-stump in the first photo, and decided to go from there. Thankyou - I thought it was worth looking at for its own sake.
ReplyDeleteSicily - wow. Anywhere in Italy - wow. Dream landscapes.
I'm the chain gang. Transported, as it were, whether it be for servitude or something higher, I'm not sure...
I do like that notion of disturbing as well as completenting the garden view.Apart from that reading this post makes me want to eat some spag bol. (vegetarian version)
ReplyDeleteI don't want to start messing with your diet Catmint...must say though, Italian food seems to match out climate.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't acually thought of sculpture as 'disturbing' its place until I wrote it. I do like my eye to be caught, not just soothed.