A beautiful Sunday morning to visit a few museums.
Wipe your feet if you came on horseback
The doors have so much character
Inside a special exhibit and movie about his life
Perspective of size “blow up”
In his latest paintings, Franz Gertsch returns to a color that has fascinated art history for centuries: blue. He paints five pictures with lapis lazuli pigment, one of the most precious and luminous shades of blue. Three of them are on display here: Grasses VII, Blue Summer, and Blue Butterbur. They are monochrome paintings, marking a departure from any local coloring, a move Gertsch had prepared through his woodcuts but now, for the first time, consistently implements in his paintings.
Regarding the creation of these paintings, Gertsch recalls: “Sometime in November 2019, Peter Iseli visited us and saw that I was working on a painting that I was creating exclusively with the color of lapis lazuli. The next day, there was a letter in the mailbox.” Inside were the wise words of an 18th-century apothecary: “Lapis is also beneficial for the brain and therefore very helpful against madness, dizziness, palpitations, melancholy, and other mental illnesses.” The lapis painting was almost finished. Then I discovered the first snowdrops around the house and blue-eyed hepatica at the edge of the woods, when I clearly perceived the healing power of the blue stone, for the gloomy, melancholy days of winter were over.” For Gertsch, the healing power of lapis lazuli is not a theory—it is a lived, sensual experience. At the same time, the paintings allude to a rich cultural history: blue is the color of the Marten coat, the color of Fra Angelico and Vermeer, but also that of Yves Klein from 1960. In Gertsch’s work, however, blue remains grounded. It transforms the image of growth and vegetation into an imaginary, dreamlike construct.
These are the colors of the Marten coat, the color of Fra Angelico and Vermeer, but also of Yves Klein from 1960. The three paintings develop an inner logic. In Blue Butterbur, the spread leaves, covering the ground, lie flat on the picture plane. They reinforce the surface of the image, resting upon it. In Grasses Vill, however, the narrow, pointed leaves and elongated stems stand out against the uniformly blue background, cutting through it with the sharpness of a knife. The picture plane is simultaneously affirmed and destroyed.
Blue Summer is the consequence of this and the most moving of these works. The painting was created when Gertsch was ninety years old, based on a photograph of dense undergrowth with young trees. His physical weakness is directly transferred to the painting: short, sweeping movements of the small brush, indistinctly defined color forms. But the painting transforms weakness into strength. The restless movement of the brush becomes a seismographic recording of an image that seems to tremble. Radiantly dark zones of ultramarine blue alternate with bright, unpainted patches; darkness and light are mutually dependent. Blue summer thus forms….
On to other famous works and Italian paintings from the 14th century.
Why that statue kinderfredserbrunner with the ogre eating babies…they were very plump
Religious paintings from Italy from the 14th century
A beautiful museum to enjoy on a Sunday morning in Bern
Lunch time at Cafe des Pyrenees
A lil taste of the 🇺🇸
And fancy girl
Next up E=mc2
No truer words and you don’t have to be a genius 💥
A very interesting man in a very difficult time in our worlds history
Two museums and our brains are ready for a 💤 always a fab walk back to the old town
A little water sprout & happy kids
Cute reminder to give way to trams & buses on these very busy streets
The Rosengarden high in the hills above Bern. The land was purchased in 1751 to become a cemetery. Thankful the ladies auxiliary pushed to make it a park. Between 1914 to 1933 the park was improved and 250 rose bushes blossomed.
Today there’s a walkway, playground for children and a cafe. The locals and tourists gather for free smells and celebrate the sunsets glow over the city below.
It’s like “one more rock” we can’t stop ourselves
Dinner at the cafe is calling and the sun is going to set in a bit…
A visit from a local
The towers in the cityscape
Look left to see the moon and the Bernese Alps in the distance
Take the #10 to our home away from home They are always on time. They have boards that update the arrival time at the stop and on the bus or tram. The buses & trams are electric and usually full. ❤️ the Swiss 🇨🇭
