![]() You can browse them here btw: Holbein Jr. Among the many other works on display, there’s plenty of Holbein Jr. The experience makes me wonder how deeply Dostoevsky’s reaction might have been nestled within the flood of impressions he must have had upon viewing the museum’s OTHER paintings. And the anxious feeling that very little of importance will actually make it into language. If I were an art historian I’d try to go into this more, but I’m on shaky ground as it is, just expressing very human emotions that welled up in me during this afternoon’s visit. These guys on the right are saints, I guess, to judge from the halos, but they are absolutely unique human beings experiencing their own individual thoughts and feelings. They feel like something genuine and new (for that time, and this one) by comparison with the conventional expressions of art of a previous period. Anyway, I was impressed not only by this architect’s furrowed brow, so much like mine at this moment, but also by the very human emotions expressed on so many of the paintingsĭisplayed in the museum. Too much to say, too little space, not to mention patience, including that of any readers of these lines. My state of mind this time around is well captured by the painting you see above, which depicts an architect holding what I believe is a compass, an architect tool, but what I picture there is a pen of course (or potentially even a paintbrush). I do give a tiny sampling of links below there are many more studies of this topic, and I will be glad to post any others that people send me. And each time I have the feeling the painting was in a different place––or was it just me? One time high on a wall, another time over a doorway (though this particular one could be interference from The Idiot), each time of course recalling Anna Grigorievna’s account of her terror that Feodor Mikhailovich’s powerful reaction to the painting, which he stared and stared at after climbing a chair, would spill over into an epileptic fit.Įven though Holbein’s painting was what drew me back to Basel yet again, the story of Dostoevsky’s fascination with it is so famous, I won’t tarry over the details. I’ve visited Holbein the Younger’s “Christ in the Tomb” in the Basel Kunstmuseum three times: the early nineties, and then again during Dostoevsky Camp (Baden Baden, 2001, or was it Geneva, 2004?!), and then this summer (in JUNE). While I have you, feel free to correct anything. It happens that right now I am in a place called Takayama, Japan, devoid of traces of historical Russian writers, though lots of people read Dostoevsky here–and not just those who will participate in the upcoming IDS Symposium pre-event next week Nagoya Pre-Symposium And it does fit what has turned out to be our theme of fuzzy numbers and nonlinearity. None of this is new to scholars, who dip in where and when they can. And of course the blog itself starts with the end and ends with the beginning (of this journey of mine). Chekhov died in Badenweiler but will come back to life, we hope. Anyway, Basel came before Badenweiler and Florence, but after Genoa (from which a meek little post has been simmering since June). And others, from Taganrog, Sumy, Yalta, not to mention Siberia and other parts of Russia, past and future, which were planned but now are sulking in horrified limbo. This goes for some Nice posts still suspended in the air, complete with their photographs and even thoughts, from last summer. ![]() Cautionary note: do not expect chronology here, or unity of place–sometimes the entries (along with their author) have to stew.
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