Word: venetian
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...School of Criticism, reports that every Saturday afternoon in winter she cleans her Manhattan apartment to the broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera, only to run into serious dusting dilemmas. "If I were not saddled with the Metropolitan, I would clean in the following order: straighten up the room, dust Venetian blinds, clean window sills, brush lampshades and upholstered furniture, dust surfaces, mop floor, vacuum rugs . . . This order makes sense: it chases the dirt from above to below. But operas don't work this...
...opens, as an opera should, with an overture. Overtures, though not all composers seem aware of it, are for tidying up. The overture to the Marriage of Figaro is one of the best; it impels you to a gay scurry ideal for the purpose. And then, on to the Venetian blinds! You can't. When the curtain goes up, Figaro is measuring and planning and Susanna is trying on a hat. Their music is for rearranging your furniture in different positions . . . And you don't have much time because soon Figaro will swing into Se vuol ballare...
...Bunshaft. Recalls Wilde "I admit I asked Gordon plaintively if there could be any compromise. I'd have loved a fireplace! Well, I have a magnificent office in plain taste." A $100,000 mock-up section was thrown up by Turner Construction Co., and everything, from Linotile to venetian-blind drawstrings, wa tried on it. To reduce heat, a new green-tinted glass was used. To break up space, new movable paneling was developed. To keep maintenance cost low, dark grey Quincy granite (12,000 sq. ft.) was used around the base, Vermont white marble...
JACOPO da Ponte suffered an unhappy fate. He painted in Venice at the same time as Titian and Tintoretto. It was enough to depress even the most talented artist, and 16th century Venetian dandies did not help matters by sneering that Jacopo was "full of provincial sap." Jacopo despondently returned to his nearby native town, whose name, Bassano, became his own because he rarely signed his work, and when he did. merely brushed the modest words. "Jack, by the bridge at Bassano...
Beside the fame and accomplishments of Tintoretto and Titian, Venetian snobs considered simple Bassano a peasant. But the painters respected him. Titian turned commissions over to him, telling clients that since they were people of taste he knew that they would be pleased with Bassano's work. When Bassano's reputation as an animal painter was growing, a client of Tintoretto, in an argument over a portrait of himself, threatened to fly into a "beastly rage," only to hear Tintoretto placidly say, "Go to Jacopo. He is an excellent painter of beasts. He will do a wonderful portrait...