Word: levitational
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Views of Rome. Etchings by G.B. Piranesi and photographs by Herschel Levit, at the MFA through...
Rome is history's eternal litmus aper. Dipped in the perceptions f an era or an individual, it changes color-republican white, imperial purple, Christian gold-indicating the nature of those perceptions and their changes from one century to the next. Comparing Giovanni Battista Piranesi's etchings and Herschel Levit's photographs of Rome, exhibited together in the MFA, is a fascinating study in perceptive, historical or otherwise When the 18th century Italian looks at these imperial Roman monuments he sees a totally different structure than the 20th century New Yorker does. One wonders which has changed more; Rome...
...differences are all the more striking because Levit has tried to reproduce Piranesi's image as exactly as possible, trying to find the same angle, the same perspective, or a similar effect of light and shadow. He has not succeeded in a single instance. It is impossible to recapture Piranesi's vision; either the monument itself has changed, or the ground level, or the surroundings. In some instances Piranesi drew scenes the eye (or the camera) could not see in any age; there is not nor has there ever been enough space in front of the Trevi Fountain to make...