Street Art: Lyon

The eyes of Bowie are upon you.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Side Trips: Vienna of Your Nightmares

Image
Kapuzinergruft , Vienna Vienna is the most beautiful, elegant, sophisticated place for contemplating what awaits beyond the veil of death and in the darkest corners of our nightmares. Amidst the baroque architecture, string quartets and bustling coffee houses serving schnitzels and tortes to tourists and locals alike, you will find more skulls, trolls, and demons per square kilometer than any other place I've ever been.   Anti-war and Anti-fascism monument, Vienna In some respects, this makes perfect sense. The Habsburg Empire, in its many iterations from roughly the 11th century until the end of WWI, encompassed huge swaths of Balkan, Carpathian, and Transylvanian eastern Europe. They likely absorbed the folklore of these lands, which was rife with fantastic beasts and horrific, undead revenants, as subjects and treasure were funneled back towards the seat of imperial rule in Austria. Still, that's not much of an explanation. Monstrous creatures are part of folklore around the...
Read more

All Hallows: le Transi de René de Chalon

Image
Reproduction of Ligier Richer's "Transi de René de Chalon" (1547), La Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine, 16th Arr.  During the Renaissance period, transis --so-named because they showed the transition of mortal remains in the process of decomposition--became a fashion in burial art. One of the most evocative is the transi of René de Chalon, Prince of Orange, who was mortally wounded during the defense of Saint-Dizier (now part of the Haute-Marne department) in 1544, and who died soon after at age 25. Rather than opt for a heroic memorial, the Prince requested to be represented as a cadaver, in the same manner as his father and uncle who held the title before him. Originally, the cadaver's left hand held aloft the Prince's desiccated heart. At the time, burying nobles' body parts in separate places was a common practice, to better distribute the great person's glory. However, at some point, the heart went missing. The theft was blamed on that traditio...
Read more