Thursday 5 May 2011

Veiled Beauties

To celebrate the beginning of Spring i'd like to treat you with some pictures i've made over the last years. They have one theme in common: Veiled faces.

These sculptures are quite rare but they are often very beautiful and stunning pieces of art. They were however quite popular in France and Italy in the mid-19th century and the artists regarded it as a challenge to do it as realistic as possible.

But see for yourself:

Cemetery Prazeres, Lisboa, 2009. 



Cimitero Monumentale, Milano, 2010

Cimitero Staglieno, Genoa, 2010. Note also the world in her right hand and the snake in her left. 

Cimitero Staglieno, Genoa, 2010. Detail of the sculpture above. 
Cimitero Monumentale, Milano, 2010. Not excactly a beauty but at least veiled. It is a tiny miniature (about  2-3 inches tall) and it was sheer luck to spot her.

Cimitero Staglieno, Genoa, 2010. One of my favourites at Staglieno. And again my headline is a bit misleading here. The beauty on the picture isn't veiled. And the veiled bloke isn't that handsome. Still, at least veiled and beauty fits. In a way.



One last sentence to my introduction. After proofreading this entry i've found nothing even remotely about spring. Nothing whatsoever. Sorry.


4 comments:

  1. Hi Martin,

    Can you please suggest where the best place to stay is, when visiting the Staglieno in Genoa.
    I have always wanted to go there and your photos only make it all the more desirable to visit.

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  2. Depends on what you're willing to spend... I went there by plane with a low-budget-carrier. We landed at the Airport Milano-Bergamo and rented a car. We had an appartment for 5 days about 1 hour south of Genoa. I'm fairly sure that there are cheap hotels in Genoa itself but we didn't bothere because we spent just 2 days at the Staglieno Cemtery (which isn't enough to cover it entirely....). The rest was more or less ordinary holiday.

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  3. One thing though: It is a nightmare when it comes to parking space in Italy. But near the Staglieno is a huge parking lot (for free!).

    In retrospective i would say that the trip to the Staglieno was one of the best decisions i've ever made. And it's very sure that i will visit it again. It is absolutely brilliant.

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  4. Would have been nice if anyone could tell me the name of who made the fassio statue, either that or what it represents, or what anything that holds a globe and a serpent represents because google is absurdly unresponsive in this search.

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