2022. 12. 11 Sun

Along the canal to the Tiergartenviertel. We passed the huge ‘I do you’ (sexual allusion?) mirror of one Monica Bonvicini tilted against/covering the Mies gallery: her installations there are quote, a feminist appropriation of the space, a concept which baffles me a little. But one great gesture - the reflective Hochparterre which dematerialises the two Tinos marble shafts was in effect mesmerising. A brilliant twist to the transparency of the space I think, only I don’t know what should be feminist about it & was too cheap to buy a ticket and climb up to give myself a chance to be convinced. The surreal image of the floating mezzanine of a single perfectly horizontal surface seen from afar was an inspiration enough, maybe not ideologically but at least phenomenologically.

Now to where we were actually headed: panel reliefs by Donatello - very elegant and almost too silken to be marble. Finest lines and slits which then became beautiful eyes, nose, lips and etc. Most impressive was The Dead Christ Tended by Angels in which the left angel supporting the head of Jesus looked authentically sad, compared e.g. to the paintings by Bellini or Mantegna where the angels’ expressions are much exaggerated and almost theatrical. But this angel’s five-year-old face was genuinely frowning, about to burst into tears with the dark veins of the marble indicating its trail. Per Lessing the sculptures should as a frozen medium depict never the apex of emotion - instead the just preceding instant to give room: that if the audience were presented with an absolutely angry or an absolutely sad face unchanging, remaining so as long as marbles last, they wouldn’t be moved but repelled by such an unnatural lasting of something which in nature is only instantaneous. Thus the genius of Donatello.

At night we went to the Dom for a small organ recital I booked spontaneously. A bombastic commencement with Reger, was totally unable to grasp any tempo or harmony and wondered whether it was because of the extreme intricacy of the instrument itself - that sometimes it is so unclear. One musical gain was the discovery of César Franck’s op.18.