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Caravaggio, "Medusa" (1598), The Uffizi, Florence

Four-hundred years ago the world lost a great artist and hell, perhaps, claimed a new citizen. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was a painter who revolutionized the field of religious art and the use of light and shadows to evoke emotion. He was also a drunkard, thief, thug and a murderer. In a duel in1606, Caravaggio stabbed Ranuccio Tomassoni in the thigh, striking an artery which caused the latter to bleed to death. Caravaggio fled Rome, travelling as far away as Malta. When a pardon seemed to be on the horizon, the artist began his return home only to be left in a malarial swamp which led to his death….maybe.  His remains were never found……maybe.

Enter Silvano Vinceti, a TV host who according to The Wall Street Journal:  “dug up the remains of Dante Alighieri to digitally reconstruct the medieval poet’s face. He penetrated the stone surface of a Florentine basilica to exhume the Italian humanist Pico della Mirandola to measure his skull. He plucked the body of Petrarch from a tomb, only to discover the poet’s head had been swiped and replaced with the skull of a young girl.” Now, using DNA and carbon-dating testing, Mr. Vinceti is studying remains purported by some to be the remains Caravaggio. City officials in Porto Ecrole have given Mr. Vinceti and his team access to remains from a Renaissance-era cemetery. He has so far narrowed his search to nine bodies which fit the physical descriptions we have of the artists. When this is done he will be able to determine what killed the man who once imbued this corpse. Then, however, he is only half done – here’s the tricky part. As we speak, he is trying to track down anyone who is a testifiable descendant of Caravaggio. I wish him luck. Oh, and by the way, Vinceti is also amongst the group who has successfully lobbied the Italian government to exhume the remains of Leonardo in order to study the Renaissance man’s facial structure. Many think that the Mona Lisa, is actually a self portrait of Leonardo in disguise. Read more about that here.

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I am one of the lucky bloggers who today will be writing about, reviewing and just plain geeking-out for Quirk Classics’ next book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls, the prequel to Seth Grahame-Smith and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I have to say that first off, I loved it. Steve Hockensmith has done a fantastic job of channeling Austen’s style and the voices of the Bennet clan.

For those who aren’t aware of the original PPZ’s plot, the Bennet sisters (their father…..oh, and Mr. Darcy) are regency era zombie slayers after Britian has become overrun by “the dreadfuls”. Throughout PPZ we are given little hints about their past training and of their many previous battles with zombies. Now, Mr. Hockensmith has written a fully original novel to answer any nagging questions fans may have had.

But, as I said before, this not just a quickly or poorly written knockoff. Mr. Hockensmith has the language and style of 19th C. British writers down to a science. Into this tale he weaves a mix of  Romeroesque (sure, it’s a word) horror and totally choreographed martial arts. As in PPZ (and in Pride and Prejudice, of course), we find our protagonist, the severely witty Miss Eliza, torn between two potential suitors who couldn’t be more different: one who wishes to end the threat of the dreadfuls through battle, the other through scientific precision. This book was great. We all love to see the genesis of some of our favorite stories and whether that favorite be PPZ or Miss Austen’s original, it is a lot of fun to see a younger, less confident Elizabeth and the rest of the Bennets.

So take a minute and check out the message boards that Quirk has set up by clicking here. Make sure you just leave the name of this blog in the comment section for your chance to win one of 50 Quirk Books Prize Packs, which include: and advance copy of PPZ DOD, audiobooks of PPZ & Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, a code to download audio chapters from PPZ DOD and much, much more! Good luck to all.

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WATCH THIS SPACE! — I have just received an advance copy of Dawn of the Dreadfuls, a prequel to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the New York Times bestseller from Quirk Books. The good people at Quirk Books have asked a handful of bloggers to read and review DOD and to write a bit about it in a post on March 3rd. Being a huge fan of Quirk and of genre mash-ups in general, I couldn’t help myself.

So on March 3rd check out this blog for details on the new book and for a link to a huge Quirk Books giveaway featuring 50 grand prizes each worth over $100! This prize includes Quirk books, audiobooks, posters and more. So remember to check back to simcoeART.com on March 3rd for your chance to win this prize!

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Pablo Picasso, "The Actor" (1904-1905), The Met, NY

Oh boy….from Bloomberg.com:

A Picasso painting, worth more than $130 million by some estimates, was gouged on Friday at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art when a museumgoer fell into the artwork, leaving a six-inch gash.

The 1904-1905 painting, “The Actor,” depicting a graceful, gaunt male figure in a dusty pink costume on stage, was hung in a second-floor gallery among a display of early Picasso artworks.

An unidentified woman attending a museum class “lost her balance” and crashed into the artwork, according to a museum statement. The woman was not injured, said Elyse Topalian, a museum spokeswoman. The painting received a vertical tear in the lower right hand corner, the statement said. “Actor” was worth about $130 million, according to a New York art dealer.

The Picasso has been removed from the gallery and taken to the museum’s conservation studio for “assessment and treatment,” the statement said. Because the tear occurred in the lower portion of the canvas, the repair is expected to be “unobtrusive,” according to the museum.

The canvas will be included in the “Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art” exhibition, featuring 250 works, scheduled to run April 27 to August 1.

The six-feet-tall painting is crucial to the artist’s oeuvre, signaling a shift from his early blue period to the rose period, according to the statement.

Automobile heiress Thelma Chrysler Foy and daughter of Walter P. Chrysler donated the painting to the museum in 1952.

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Andrew Wyeth, "Christina's World" (1948), MOMA

I was reading an article recently about the artists who left us in 2009. As I looked through the list, I had forgotten that American great Andrew Wyeth died in January. I began to look online at some of his paintings and was struck again by his most famous painting, Christina’s World (1948). As 2009 ends and 2010 begins this painting speaks to me as one to keep in mind. Much has been made over the years about what is happening in this painting. We do know that Christina Olson, Wyeth’s neighbor, suffered from muscular deterioration hence her “crawling” up the hill. But without knowing this what do we see? I see slow but determined progress towards an end, a goal. This is where 2010 finds me. Moving slowly, but moving forwards, eyes always looking forward. Happy New Year.

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