... the sun is trying to break through the Roman clouds this morning as all woke early for a solid day of touring. The group, after breakfast, made their way to Villa Borghese, one of the highlights being Gian Lorenzo Bernini's David--obviously important to us at Saint David's. This afternoon it's lunch, St. Peter's Square and a private tour of the Vatican and Sistine Chapel tonight. The boys whose passports were stolen were all issued new ones this morning at the American Consulate and the travelers checks are being issued as I write this blog entry at 2:50 PM Rome time. All remain healthy.
Yesterday evening, independent scholar and critic Michelle Marder Kamhi ( www.mmkamhi.com ), co-editor with husband Louis Torres of Aristos , an online review of arts; author of Who Says That's Art? A Commonsense View of the Visual Arts ; and grandmother of two Saint David's boys, gave a thought provoking talk on art for our grandparent community. An advocate of objective standards in arts scholarship and criticism, Ms. Kamhi focused her talk on the ways in which art critics such as Clement Greenberg promoted the shift from representational art to abstraction. Kamhi argues that the abstract and post-modern art prevalent today, which often requires explanation by docents in order to be understood, goes against art's purpose. Taking issue with Greenberg's contention that representation is an expendable convention of painting, she quoted the late art critic John Canaday: "Art is the tangible expression of the intangible values that men live by." ...
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