The deadly sins in Art

Nothing we make or do can last for eternity

As it is reported, a man climbed over the guardrail of the chapel of the Pietà in St. Peter's Basilica and wheeled a hammer to the Madonna's left arm, it sheared off. He also smashed the nose and left eyelid of the marble sculpture. A work which took a toll of the young Italian sculptor for over two years.

Michelangelo's feat was that he encased both figures as one piece and the marble's grain had to be precise in every aspect so that the Virgin's lap was the center of balance. Here is were her son lay.

Yet, in the frenzy, in the assailant's quest for infamy, his actions proved the power which art possess, that is of its beholden truth, in its self sacrifice, in the blisters and weeping nights. From a block of stone, the form, the expression and weight conceptualized in the mind before Michelangelo wheeled at the marble with his chisel. The man found that by attempting to destroy an irreplaceable masterpiece, it could reflect on the fragility of man, and his man-made objects. In seconds, parts of the sculpture was reduced to dust. Nothing we make or do can last for entity.

The damaged Pietà by Michelangelo, 1499
Marble 68.5 × 76.8 in
St. Peter's Basilica, Rome

Left: The 33 year old assailant striking the Pietà, in May of 1972 at the St. Peter's Basilica, Rome

Madness, Mathematics and Art

Take a picture of my heart...take a picture of it..

Ariapita avenue in Woodbrook, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago is the hot spot for nightlife entertainment. There are many gambling facilities consisting of private casinos, and a few bars littered along the street. This is Saturday night, and the scene is less tepid from the energetic crowds the night before. But something unusual marks the pavement.

Perfectly aligned on top of the iron grill, a sheet of newspaper is positioned between three objects. A slice of bread, the skin of a quartered watermelon and a cap used as a holder to place a scrub upright. This is a offering to the female images are clearly seen in print.

The artist behind this installation continued his process by laying the spreads of the newsprint in a sequential order on the concrete. Further apart, he constructed a bridge using discarded slices of melon in twelve equal parts. They are arranged in a pattern as if it to write a mathematical code. And in the frenzy of being photographed, he stalled at first, then jumped to his feet and pounded his chest with his palm and said; Take a picture of my heart...take a picture of it..

The artist is a young man who is suffering from a form of mental illness, one of the many homeless people loss in Port of Spain, and his psychological behaviour shifted from coherent moods to unpredictable schizophrenia.

Then you must question, in his madness, why art? why mathematics? These are the clues of our civilization, the order, the sequence, and the meaning. See him as thebookmann header