camminando | Rome: Finding Symmetry Inside & Outside

Two of the most meaningful buildings by Donato Bramante are located in Rome, about 2 km one from the other.

"Tempietto" is located just outside the park of Gianicolo, in the complex of San Pietro in Montorio. It was built around 1502, commissioned by the King of Sicily Ferdinando II of Aragon and his wife Isabella. Perhaps inspired by the Temple of Vesta in Tivoli, the buildings is based on circular symmetry, framed by arches of the surrounding cloister. Its almost minimalist vocabulary, based on emphasis on structure vs. decoration, is characterized by radial symmetry, with an entablature supported by sixteen columns of doric order. The interior of the dome presents a fresco resembling a starred sky, while the floor exhibits symmetrical in its mosaic pavement.

camminando | Paris, April 14: Axes and Stars

Today total walk length was about 28 kilometers.
The urban itinerary started in Montmartre, followed to Opéra National de Paris at Palais Garnier. Then there was an encounter with an interrupted sequence of rues, boulevards and avenues, where axes meet stars. Arches are focal points of avenues and frame them at the same time.

Opéra National de Paris at Palais Garnier

Shopping grandeur at Printemps

Grand Palais

Shopping grandeur at Avenue des Champs-Élysées

Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile focus of Avenue des Champs-Élysées

Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile focal point of Avenue de Grand Armee

Approaching Arche de la Défense

Finding the Axis Mundi in the urban axis framed by Arche de la Défense

camminando | Paris day 3, morning of April 13: Musée d'Orsay

The morning of my third day in Paris is spent in the Musée d'Orsay, The museum, which host one of the most outstanding impressionist and post-impressionist collections is located in the  former Beaux-Arts railway station Gare d'Orsay, which was built between 1898 and 1900. The station was renovated in the 1980s' from the interior design of the late Italian architect Gae Aulenti.

A 1.6 km walk takes from Fontaine Saint Michel, in Place Saint-André des Arts, to Musée d'Orsay through historical la rue de l'Université (1639). The grand interior of the museum is marked by original clocks often against windows opening to views of Musée du Louvre.

I am taken by the impressionism reminiscent of classes of history of art, walking through so many iconic paintings.

La rue de l'Université

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)| Les baigneuses, (1918-1919)

Édouard Manet Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe

Edgar Degas, Danseuses, bronze

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), La chambre de Van Gogh à Arles (1889)

Neoclassical art framed by the Beaux-Art interior

 

Views and clocks

camminando | Paris day 2, April 12: Framed Views of Buildings and Imaginary World

The walk between framed architectures of buildings, pyramids, courtyard leads to iconic painting. My focus is the Italian Renaissance.

Beginning my walk at Fountain Saint-Michel

Successive framed views with the Pyramid as focal point

Classical art