Good day!
Well, I'm sure you've been following the news, it appears that I got out of Italy just in time to miss country-wide travel restrictions and quarantining efforts; but not in time to miss the order from the CDC to self-quarantine here at home... I got an email from my boss at work, on Saturday, putting me under quarantine procedures till 3/23.
So I'm currently working remotely, sitting in my underwear at my home computer, dealing with all the office's emails. It's both good and bad, as you might expect: I can play PS4 or edit between emails, but I can't get a latte from down the block...
I wanted to do something a little different today. I wanted to tell you about my vacation.
First and foremost, let's get that bad shit outta the way. Besides the virus, we did have a few upsets: my mum's purse was stolen during our first day, along with her passport, glasses, and credit cards; I actually ended up having to temporarily finance a lot of the trip due to this. Additionally, my dad ended up backing our rental car into a post at one point. It rained most of the trip. And, more related to our endeavors here, I was unable to shoot any local boys with in Italy...
That is not to say the trip was without inspiration!
I find myself oscillating between two major highlights, with a third as a close-second...
Perhaps topping the list was Paestum, the 5th-Century Greek town off the Amalfi Coast. Greek-turned-Roman, to be clearer. The best Greek ruins still in existence, outside of Sicily, Paestum is a huge temple- and township-complex near the modern city of Salerno. Three sizable temples sit within its surrounds, dedicated to Hera, Apollo, and Artemis. I walked around, gaping, in wonder. If you know the pictorialist portraits of F Holland Day, you can see why I found Paestum so enriching and inspiring an experience...
Vying for first-place was the Galleria Borghese. This villa-turned-museum sits in the midst of one of Rome's larger public parks, surrounded with period gardens and bird aviaries where green lovebirds flit about endlessly. I cannot really describe my feelings about it. Like any good queer, I love death and shadow. So all the Caravaggio’s in this place made me especially happy and excited. You know the Boy with a Basket of Fruit, yes? That was there; and it appears that Caravaggio used the same model to paint several John the Baptist portraits I was not familiar with. As you may recall from my 2019 trip to Paris, I became kinda obsessed with all the John the Baptist sculptures there by Lenoir. More John the Baptist boys! Yes, please! I think I feel a new series coming on...
That wasn’t all, though. Bernini’s famous Apollo and Daphne was here. It was as Baroque as you’ve seen in pictures, and absolutely positively utterly arresting and stunning. I’ve never seen anything like it! Bernini has sculptures all over Rome. See?
The final highlight was nearer the hilltown we were staying, Soriano nel Camino. It is called the Parco dei Mostri. The “park of the monsters,” or “Sacro Bosco” (AKA sacred grove). A 16th-Century garden designed as the antithesis to palace- and aristocratic-manicured garden landscaping. Situated under the castle hills of Bomarzo, its creator, Pier Francesco Orsini, commissioned it after his wife died to cope with his grief.
Essentially, it is a maze and mess of fantastical grotesque sculptures—some carved from the very bedrock in the earth—in the Mannerist style. Much of its symbolism is lost to us, or designed to be purposefully vague, and is filled with inscriptions that further obscure the issue at hand. Sol per sfogare il Core (“just to set the heart free”), as one of the obelisk inscriptions says. It’s fucking weird, chock full of gods and magical creature. And there was no inherent organization or rhyme to the experience, which was really lovely. You’d turn a corner, and, a giant fish was drinking the spray from a waterfall. Or a dog sat stately next to a sleeping woman, carved from granite, looking dead.
I'm not sure what I'm drawing from it yet, but I certainly haven't stopped thinking about it. What would a photography of nonsense and form look like?
All the pictures seen here are mine, just iPhone photos. I did bring my DSLR, and I took some additional images which I'll edit eventually. It was very weird not shooting a model and focusing on inanimate things (which is definitely not something I do often). But the lands and sculptures and landscapes were subject and inspiration enough. I'm hoping they'll carry over into the work somehow.
Hope ya'll are doing well, too! Help distract me during quarantine!
Yours,
Matt
P.S. - My parents and I rolled with the punches as best we could, by the way, dealing with passports and glasses and rental companies pretty easily. My mum's passport only took two-hours to resolve; and credit is due to the Roman Police Force (against all odds) for recovering my mum's wallet! Also, I highly recommend the Italian healthcare system: we got her a new pair of glasses in 45-minutes for half the cost of specs here.
P.P.S. - The cover image for this post is from Rome's centro sculptural marvel, Altar of the Fatherland.