Lovely golden light shots at the start (and again in the middle). Cool details of the sail ship as well. Great theatre! Amazing backdrop ab 17.22. Nice to see you and your wife as well. Great lions as usual...
The technical term for a cow's skull used as an architectural ornament is "bucraine' - from the Latin "bos cranium" -skull of an ox. I first saw them in Vienna in the gardens of Schonbrunn imperial palace where they feature in a triumphal arch known as the "gloriette."
Never heard of either place until now, but incredible locations and excellent photography. Interesting comments earlier too about the origins of Venetian lion sculpture!
I've been wondering why the Venetian Republic allowed such obviously appalling and genuinely crap depictions of a lion as their symbol. Not one you have shown has been anywhere near what we should expect of them - Venice has a deserved reputation for great art, glass, sculpture, so I looked up Wikipedia: the Lion of Venice "has had a very long and obscure history, probably starting its existence as a winged lion-griffin statue on a monument to the god Sandon at Tarsus in Cilicia about 300 BC." So the sculptures depicts the 3rd Century BC lion, rather than a real lion?
Yh - its a whole mix of things I was always shocked at how non-standardised the Venetian Lions were, they all hit a few main beats like the open book & the side profile with head looking left but other than that there are no signs of mass-production or standardisation (puzzling for a state that had production-line shipbuilding and other economic innovations way ahead of most of Europe) As for the accuracy of depiction - again its all over the map, one of the most famous lions, the bronze on a pillar in St Marks sq Venice - we're pretty sure that didnt start life as lion at all and was a looted (yes - possible griffin) that was augmented later that one in particular has striking similarities to how Chinese sculpture depicts lions which has a similar disregard for realism
This type of lion is basically derived from Christian symbolism and is a stylized representation of a lion -compare it to Chinese lions that are just as odd - the idea was that they deterred evil forces from entering a sacred space - in short they scared the demons away. You can see them everywhere in Italy and they go very far back long before Venetian times - look at the ones at the entrance to Como cathedral in Lombardy,Italy. Often these lions had a column coming out of their backs. With regard to Venice - the patron saint of Venice was St Mark the evangelist whose symbol was a lion - that's why it became the symbol of Venice and to have a realistic lion would have totally defeated the purpose - it had to be a mystical mythical type of lion making it far more powerful and mysterious.
Korcula is a must visit!
Ace. 🙌🏼 Looking forward to those Venetian deep dives.
Mate , it never stop to amaze me how you deliver such taylormade videos to me.Keep with the content, huge appreciation 💪💪
thks! genuinely wasn't sure if i even had an audience for these - glad you're getting something out of them!
Lovely golden light shots at the start (and again in the middle). Cool details of the sail ship as well. Great theatre! Amazing backdrop ab 17.22. Nice to see you and your wife as well. Great lions as usual...
thks!
actually a high quality video that deserves more views and likes!
thks! appreciate it
The technical term for a cow's skull used as an architectural ornament is "bucraine' - from the Latin "bos cranium" -skull of an ox. I first saw them in Vienna in the gardens of Schonbrunn imperial palace where they feature in a triumphal arch known as the "gloriette."
Never heard of either place until now, but incredible locations and excellent photography. Interesting comments earlier too about the origins of Venetian lion sculpture!
thks!
I've been wondering why the Venetian Republic allowed such obviously appalling and genuinely crap depictions of a lion as their symbol. Not one you have shown has been anywhere near what we should expect of them - Venice has a deserved reputation for great art, glass, sculpture, so I looked up Wikipedia: the Lion of Venice "has had a very long and obscure history, probably starting its existence as a winged lion-griffin statue on a monument to the god Sandon at Tarsus in Cilicia about 300 BC."
So the sculptures depicts the 3rd Century BC lion, rather than a real lion?
Yh - its a whole mix of things
I was always shocked at how non-standardised the Venetian Lions were, they all hit a few main beats like the open book & the side profile with head looking left but other than that there are no signs of mass-production or standardisation
(puzzling for a state that had production-line shipbuilding and other economic innovations way ahead of most of Europe)
As for the accuracy of depiction - again its all over the map, one of the most famous lions, the bronze on a pillar in St Marks sq Venice - we're pretty sure that didnt start life as lion at all and was a looted (yes - possible griffin) that was augmented later
that one in particular has striking similarities to how Chinese sculpture depicts lions which has a similar disregard for realism
This type of lion is basically derived from Christian symbolism and is a stylized representation of a lion -compare it to Chinese lions that are just as odd - the idea was that they deterred evil forces from entering a sacred space - in short they scared the demons away. You can see them everywhere in Italy and they go very far back long before Venetian times - look at the ones at the entrance to Como cathedral in Lombardy,Italy. Often these lions had a column coming out of their backs. With regard to Venice - the patron saint of Venice was St Mark the evangelist whose symbol was a lion - that's why it became the symbol of Venice and to have a realistic lion would have totally defeated the purpose - it had to be a mystical mythical type of lion making it far more powerful and mysterious.
There is no Hvar or Korcula, only Lesina and Curzola