Raphael - St. George Fighting the Dragon, Vivaldi - Gloria, Rainer Maria Rilke - For Hans Carossa, Robert Louis Stevenson - Escape at Bedtime

We're already on the third month of this quarter, so when April begins we'll be starting with a fresh artist, musician and poet.  This week and next we're looking at two paintings by Raphael  depicting the story of St. George and the Dragon (this link also has various paintings of this story by more artists). This story is new to me, but I noticed that a book of fairy tales my daughter picked up at the library yesterday included a story of St. George and the Dragon so I think we'll read it aloud. Here is a link to the Listings at DealOz for St. George and the Dragon stories. I haven't read any of them so I don't know if they are good or not. You  might also check your local library.

St. George Fighting the Dragon

A beautiful piece of choir music today by Vivaldi - Gloria

Rainer Maria Rilke can take just a few descriptive words and lead us to think deeply. 

                 For Hans Carossa

Losing too is still ours; and even forgetting
still has a shape in the kingdom of transformation.
When something's let go of, it circles; and though we are
rarely the center
of the circle, it draws around us its unbroken, marvelous
curve.

Robert Louis Stevenson had such a wonderful grasp of childhood. 

                Escape at Bedtime

The lights from the parlour and kitchen shone out
      Through the blinds and the windows and bars;
And high overhead and all moving about,
      There were thousands of millions of stars.
There ne’er were such thousands of leaves on a tree,
      Nor of people in church or the Park,
As the crowds of the stars that looked down upon me,
      And that glittered and winked in the dark.

The Dog, and the Plough, and the Hunter, and all,
      And the star of the sailor, and Mars,
These shown in the sky, and the pail by the wall
      Would be half full of water and stars.
They saw me at last, and they chased me with cries,
      And they soon had me packed into bed;
But the glory kept shining and bright in my eyes,
      And the stars going round in my head.

Raphael - Crucified Christ, Vivaldi - Concerto for Oboe No. 1 in B flat, Rainer Maria Rilke - Girl's Lament, Robert Louis Stevenson - At the Seaside

Are you enjoying Raphael's paintings?  I find them interesting, though not perhaps something I want to frame and hang, yet they are thought provoking.  This week we'll study two paintings of the crucified Christ.  Notice the emotional responses of the various people.  Compare the two paintings.  Which do you prefer and why?

Our music this week from Antonio Lucio Vivaldi is Concerto for Oboe No. 1 in B flat
  A picture of an oboe

Our poem this week by Rainer Maria Rilke is "Girl's Lament"

In the years when we were
all children, this inclining
to be alone so much was gentle;
others' time passed fighting,
and one had one's faction,
one's near, one's far-off place,
a path, an animal, a picture.

And I still imagined, that life
would always keep providing
for one to dwell on things within,
Am I within myself not in what's greatest?
Shall what's mine no longer soothe
and understand me as a child?

Suddenly I'm as if cast out,
and this solitude surrounds me
as something vast and unbounded,
when my feeling, standing on the hills
of my breasts, cries out for wings
or for an end.

 And by Robert Louis Stevenson

            At the Seaside

 When I was down beside the sea
A wooden spade they gave to me
      To dig the sandy shore.
My holes were empty like a cup.
In every hole the sea came up,
      Till it could come no more.

Raphael - Vision of Ezekiel, Vivaldi - Piano Guys performing Let it Go - Vivaldi Winter,

This week our painting by Raphael is Ezekiel's vision.  The Biblical reference is Ezekiel 1.  How is this painting like the Scriptural passage?  How is it different?  What would you change if you were the artist?

Vision of Ezekiel by Raphael

After that painting it seems we need some dramatic music to go along with it so how about this dramatic video by the Piano Guys Let it Go (Disney's "Frozen") - Vivaldi's Winter.  It's also been below zero here all week so the winter scene and Vivaldi's "Winter" struck a chord with me.  I haven't seen Frozen, so I'm not endorsing the movie here, but I really enjoyed this music video, a creative twist with Vivaldi's music.  

This week's poem by Rainer Maria Rilke ponders growing old. Wisdom looks ahead and seizes the moment, will we look back with regret or pleasure in how we used our nights and days?

                    Growing Old

In some summers there is so much fruit,
the peasants decide not to reap any more.
Not having reaped you, oh my days,
my nights, have I let the slow flames
of your lovely produce fall into ashes?

My nights, my days, you have borne so much!
All your branches have retained the gesture
of that long labor you are rising from:
my days, my nights. Oh my rustic friends!

I look for what was so good for you.
Oh my lovely, half-dead trees,
could some equal sweetness still
stroke your leaves, open your calyx?

Ah, no more fruit! But one last time
bloom in fruitless blossoming
without planning, without reckoning,
as useless as the powers of millenia.

Our Robert Louis Stevenson poem goes with this week's winter theme:

Winter Time

Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.

Before the stars have left the skies,
At morning in the dark I rise;
And shivering in my nakedness,
By the cold candle, bathe and dress.

Close by the jolly fire I sit
To warm my frozen bones a bit;
Or with a reindeer-sled, explore
The colder countries round the door.

When to go out, my nurse doth wrap
Me in my comforter and cap;
The cold wind burns my face, and blows
Its frosty pepper up my nose.

Black are my steps on silver sod;
Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;
And tree and house, and hill and lake,
Are frosted like a wedding cake.

Raphael - The Transfiguration, Antonio Vivaldi - Flute Concertos, Rainer Maria Rilke - The Apple Orchard, Robert Luois Stevenson - The Wind

This Raphael painting, like last week's has lots of figures.  I apologize if you have already copied this work using the Picasa Web Album - because this version from Wikipedia has a bit different coloring.... This painting has beautiful, brilliant colors.  You can find the story of the Transfiguration in Luke 9:28-36 or Matthew 17:1-13.  I was wondering about the meaning of the things taking place in the crowd - wonder if it could be the story of the demon-possessed boy that follows the story of the transfiguration. 

The Transfiguration by Raphael

Vivaldi - Flute Concertos played by Emmanuel Pahud.  Antonio Vivaldi's music seems to have so much light exuberance to it!  

Rainer Maria Rilke  has such an interesting way of communicating!  What do you think of his poetry? I've included  a woodcut by Durer as mentioned in the 10th line....

 The Apple Orchard    

Flight into Egypt - Durer

Come let us watch the sun go down
and walk in twilight through the orchard's green.
Does it not seem as if we had for long
collected, saved and harbored within us
old memories? To find releases and seek
new hopes, remembering half-forgotten joys,
mingled with darkness coming from within,
as we randomly voice our thoughts aloud
wandering beneath these harvest-laden trees
reminiscent of Durer woodcuts, branches
which, bent under the fully ripened fruit,
wait patiently, trying to outlast, to
serve another season's hundred days of toil,
straining, uncomplaining, by not breaking
but succeeding, even though the burden
should at times seem almost past endurance.
Not to falter! Not to be found wanting!

Thus must it be, when willingly you strive
throughout a long and uncomplaining life,
committed to one goal: to give yourself!
And silently to grow and to bear fruit.

Our Robert Louis Stevenson Poem this week is 

The Wind

I saw you toss the kites on high
And blow the birds about the sky;
And all around I heard you pass,
Like ladies' skirts across the grass--
     O wind, a-blowing all day long,
     O wind, that sings so loud a song!

I saw the different things you did,
But always you yourself you hid.
I felt you push, I heard you call,
I could not see yourself at all--
     O wind, a-blowing all day long,
     O wind, that sings so loud a song!

O you that are so strong and cold,
O blower, are you young or old?
Are you a beast of field and tree,
Or just a stronger child than me?
     O wind, a-blowing all day long,
     O wind, that sings so loud a song!

Raphael - The School of Athens, Vivaldi - Bassoon Concertos, Rainer Maria Rilke - A Walk, Robert Louis Stevenson - The Sun's Travels

I'd like to feature a mural this week.  Raphael painted several frescoes in the palace in the Vatican in Rome.  This first picture shows the room, the second is the mural itself.

The School of Athens - Raphael

 If you compare the figures in the painting with the door beneath them in the picture of the room, it looks like the figures are full sized - as if they were real people.  It would be wonderful to stand in this room and study this painting up close.  This painting includes many of the great philosphers - the central figures are Plato and Aristotle.  " Commentators have suggested that nearly every great ancient Greek philosopher can be found in the painting, but determining which are depicted is difficult, since Raphael made no designations outside possible likenesses, and no contemporary documents explain the painting."  " What is evident is Raphael’s artistry in orchestrating a beautiful space, continuous with that of viewers in the Stanza, in which a great variety of human figures, each one expressing "mental states by physical actions," interact, in a "polyphony" unlike anything in earlier art, in the ongoing dialogue of Philosophy^{." From the Wikipedia Article}  


You may be interested in Wikipedia's entry on this Frescoe.  It includes possibilities of who the philosophers might be and close-ups of some of them.  - The School of Athens - Wikipedia. 

                                                                    * * * * *

Our music this week by Antonio Vivaldi is Bassoon Concertos beginning with Concerto A Minor.

Playing a Bassoon

Vivaldi's music is so light and happy....

If you haven't read it yet, I recommend the children's picture book, I Vivaldi.  It gives a short, but sweet introduction to his life.  

What do you think of Rainer Maria Rilke's poems so far?  They are definitely different, but interesting.  Today's poem is short but thought provoking and even through the translation by Robert Bly you sense a beauty in the words.

           A Walk

My eyes already touch the sunny hill.
going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has inner light, even from a distance-

and charges us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it,
we already are; a gesture waves us on
answering our own wave...
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.


 And our poem by Robert Louis Stevenson this week is
     
    The Sun's Travels

The sun is not a-bed, when I
At night upon my pillow lie;
Still round the earth his way he takes,
And morning after morning makes.

While here at home, in shining day,
We round the sunny garden play,
Each little Indian sleepy-head
Is being kissed and put to bed.

And when at eve I rise form tea,
Day dawns beyond the Atlantic Sea;
And all the children in the west
Are getting up and being dressed.

 

Raphael - Madonna, Antonio Vivaldi - Mandolin Concerti, Rainer Maria Rilke - Little Tear-vase, Robert Louis Stevenson - Where Go the Boats?

Here is the fourth and final Madonna by Raphael we'll be studying this term - there are many more painted by Raphael if you want to study more of them you could search Google Images - Paintings by Raphael.  How is this painting like the others?  How is it different?

Our music by Antonio Vivaldi this week is Mandolin Concerti.
I've got a CD of Vivaldi music home from the library and we are enjoying listening to it during meals.  

We also read I, Vivaldi by Janice Shefelman this morning.  It's a children's picture book with lovely paintings.  Gives a great introduction to this composer.  I enjoyed it along with them, and I noticed my 17 year old looking at the paintings when I was done reading.

The children also listened to a story CD - "Vivladi's Ring of Mystery" a tale of Venice and violins.  They seemed to enjoy it (I haven't listened to the whole thing myself).  This is the fourth title in the critically-acclaimed series by CLASSISCAL KIDS,  Other titles include "Beethoven Lives Upstairs", "Mozart's Magic Fantasy" and "Mr. Bach Comes to Call".  It has over two dozen excerpts, including Vivaldi's well-loved Four Seasons. 


I was thinking about our poet, Rainer Maria Rilke and the fact that his poetry is actually translated so it perhaps loses something in the sounds of the words that he would have chosen, but the meaning is beautiful and seems to me a bit ethereal. 

                           Little Tear-Vase

 Other vessels hold wine, other vessels hold oil
inside the hollowed-out vault circumscribed by their clay.
I, as smaller measure, and as the slimmest of all,
humbly hollow myself so that just a few tears can fill me.

Wine becomes richer, oil becomes clear, in its vessel.
What happens with tears?-They made me blind in my
glass,
made me heavy and made my curve iridescent,
made me brittle, and left me empty at last.

And a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson from A Child's Garden of Verses - 

 Where Go the Boats 

Dark brown is the river, 
   Golden is the sand.
It flows along for ever,
   With trees on either hand.

Green leaves a-floating,
   Castles of the foam,
Boats of mine a-boating--
Where will all come home?

On goes the river
   and out past the mill,
Away down the valley,
   Away down the hill.

Away down the river,
   A hundred miles or more,
Other little children
   Shall bring my boats ashore.

Raphael - Madonna del Granduca, Vivaldi- Concerto for Strings and Basso Continuo in C Major, Rainer Maria Rilke - The Panther

Our third Madonna painting by Raphael this week.  How is this painting similar to the last two and how is it different?

Madonna del Granduca - Raphael

More beautiful music by Antonio Vivaldi today - Concerto for Strings and Basso Continuo in C Major.
 If you want a short piece to focus on you could just choose one or two of the 63 pieces in this playlist to listen to this week or use the whole thing as a playlist for background music throughout the week. 

If you've been to the zoo and seen the big cats pacing in their cages, you can imagine this panther as Rainer Maria Rilke describes it in this poem:

           The Panther
 
has grown so weary that it cannot hold
anything else. It seems to him there are
a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.

As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,
the movement of his powerful soft strides
is like a ritual dance around a center
in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.

Only at times, the curtain of the pupils
lifts, quietly--. An image enters in,
rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,
plunges into the heart and is gone.