We live for the day: indeed we seem to have collectively developed a passion for producing and consuming everything very quickly – think about fast fashion, but also the immediate pleasure we derive from taking a picture with a smartphone and posting it on Instagram. Yet, sadly, immediacy and super fast rhythms do not guarantee we are producing something remarkably beautiful or something that will last. When you are therefore confronted by extreme beauty produced slowly you feel amazed and astonished.
In yesterday's post we mentioned the twelve vestments commissioned by Empress Maria-Anna Carolina of Austria for Pius the 9th that took fifteeen women and over sixteen years to complete (well, nowadays we are left speechless when we hear it took an atelier from 30 to 100 hours to finish a Haute Couture gown - that's already too much for our standards, so we could never imagine spending years to make one garment...).
Visitors wandering around the Roman Baroque Galleria Colonna, commissioned in the mid-1600s by Cardinal Girolamo I Colonna and his nephew Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna, and inaugurated by Lorenzo Onofrio's son, Philip II, in 1700, will stumble for example in two monumental cabinets in the Hall of the Landscapes, which takes its name from the numerous paintings of rural subjects by Gaspard Dughet.
One cabinet dating 1680 was made by Austrian brothers Dominikus and Franz Stainhart following a project by Carlo Fontana. The brothers were ivory carvers and recreated in 28 panels intricate scenes from the Old and New Testament. The centre of the cabinet depicts the Last Judgment that Michelangelo painted in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.
On the opposite wall stands instead a cabinet made of sandalwood and decorated with bronze and precious stones depicting a Roman villa of the era (the project in this case was by Filippo Schor, but the Stainhart brothers were called once again to do the carvings). The console tables in the gallery, including these two cabinets, are supported by submissive figures, who represent the defeated Turks at the Battle of Lepanto.
Believe it or not it took 29 years to complete the ebony and ivory cabinet, but the piece is essentially useless - its main aim wasn't indeed practical, since its function was just surprising visitors.
There are more artworks at the Galleria that prompt visitors to think about doing things slowly: among them there are the wall panels in the embroidery room. The latter is indeed covered in Indian-style tapestries in gold and silk threads from the 17th century. Looks like taking your time to do things well definitely leads to excellent results.
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