giotto

Wanted

March 26, 2022UncategorizedArena Chapel, Art, crimes against humanity, giotto, Mariupol, massacre of the innocents, Stand with Ukraine, Ukraine, Wanted, war crimesAndrew Seal View all 2 comments

Wanted for crimes against humanity, the criminal now known as the butcher of Russia, for his merciless massacre of innocent Ukrainian children, men and women, grandparents and parents. Today we learn that many of the over 300 killed in the Mariupol Theatre attack were children and pregnant women sheltering after they had escaped the bombing of the Mariupol Maternity and Children’s Hospital.

This ongoing “Massacre of the Innocents” breaks all of our hearts as it continues unabated, with the fresco by Giotto di Bondoni in the Arena Chapel in Padua as meaningful today as it was when he painted it over nine hundred years ago.

💙💛

crime against humanity

March 9, 2022UncategorizedArt, crimes against humanity, giotto, Mariupol, massacre of the innocents, pencil drawing, Picasso, Protest Art, Stand with Ukraine, UkraineAndrew Seal View all 2 comments

From Giotto to Picasso, from Guernica to Mariupol, another Massacre of the Innocents today with the bombing of the Maternity and Children’s Hospital of Mariupol, a crime against humanity that is a despicable atrocity that needs us to bear witness to in any way we know how. My drawing today, which will become a painting in due course, is born from a profound sense of helplessness and heartache that I know is felt by us all. 💙💛

massacre of the innocents

May 13, 2020Art, UncategorizedArena Chapel, Art, Art studio, crimes against humanity, drawing, giotto, Kabul attack, massacre of the innocents, Remembrance, Scrovegni Chapel, sorrowAndrew Seal View all 4 comments

Yesterday’s Massacre of the Innocents in Kabul was simply heartbreaking. This drawing today includes both a sketch based on a Reuter’s photo together with one of a section of Giotto’s Massacre of the Innocents c. 1305 from the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, which moved me so much when we visited twenty years ago. There are no words but a need to express with this drawing outrage, despair and remembrance.

plus ça change…

June 21, 2018Art, Uncategorizedfreso, giotto, humanity, Scrovegni Chapel, zero toleranceAndrew Seal View all 4 comments

The unbearable agony of a mother about to have her baby torn from her arms in this detail from the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. The image has haunted me ever since I saw it on our visit to the chapel nearly twenty years ago. It was painted by Giotto di Bondone and is as relevant today as when he painted it over seven hundred years ago.

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” -Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, 1849