RE: VMs: RE: St Mark's Basilica in Venice...?

["Mark Hippenstiel" <M.Hippenstiel@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Nick,

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:owner-vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Nick Pelling
> Posted At: Friday, October 31, 2003 9:59 PM
> Posted To: VMs
> Conversation: VMs: RE: St Mark's Basilica in Venice...?
> Subject: Re: VMs: RE: St Mark's Basilica in Venice...?
> 
> 
> Hi Mark,
> 
> I would say that they precisely resemble the kind of shapes 
> seen in the 
> VMs' pharma section, but that the *visual composition* seems 
> to have been 
> inspired by an architectural (ie representational) drawing of 
> St Mark's 
> Basilica as seen from the Campanile.
> 
> Again, the decorations on some of the pharma shapes (most notably the 
> object on the bottom left of f89r) in the VMs' pharma section 
> look (to me) 
> a lot like those found on Venetian Murano glassware from 
> 1450-1500 (for 
> example, there are some fine examples in the V&A Museum in London, & 
> probably 100's more in Venice itself).
> 
> As Murano is one of the islands that make up Venice (where the famous 
> glassware was made), I don't think my claim (that that the 
> central rosette 
> is intended to represent Venice) is too extraordinary - in 
> fact, the whole 
> rosette could be seen as a wonderful visual pun, merging 
> Murano glassware 
> with St Mark's "onion-skin" domes.

Well well, admittedly I'm not too deeply involved with the possible
interpretations of the vms' depictions, so bear with me if I show some
scepticism. This sounds too far away from 'reality' if there's such a
thing in the vms ;-)

You are constructing a self-referencing line of reasoning here if I'm
not mistaken. The mere existance of similarities between the onion
shaped domes of San Marcos' and the drawing we're talking about does not
make your claim of references to Murano glass any more probable. You
could well have a look at Russian, Indian or even far-east architecture
to find a lot of domes, even onion shaped ones.

I had a look around to see if I could find anything, and google (my fav
tool) came up with this:

http://members.lycos.nl/HoutObjectenRikMars/objecten/uitore1e.htm


The artist claims to have been inspired by something "eastern", it would
be intersting to know what exactly that was.



> >The aspect of availability of a high persepective is 
> interesting in any
> >case, but remember that height is something you do not necessarily
> >achive by artificial buildings; for instance you could climb 
> on a nearby
> >hill to have a view from above.
> 
> There are not too many nearby hills in the heart of Venice... 
> but I do take 
> your point. :-)
> 
> All the same, the perspective of the object in the VMs 
> central rosette 
> points to the object's being viewed from both above *and* 
> close by. The 
> Campanile is really very close and really very tall... I 
> wonder if any 
> other similar views of Byzantine domes might present themselves? (For 
> example, I couldn't find any evidence of one in Istanbul, but 
> who's to say?)

I would suggest that someone should do a little research to find out
which medieval cities offered such attributes: onion topped towers which
could be viewed from above and nearby. There shouldn't have been too
many of them. Unfortunately, I lack the means of accomplishing such an
investigation.. Anyway it might turn out out that Venice is one of them
(quite obviously) and that other evidences indicate it's the best
choice, but you never know.


Cheers
Mark
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