"Dancing Queen" from the Blueberry Land

This happened on the sixth blueberry rainy day. Blueberryess was so fed up with the blueberryish rain, that she decided to do something very weird and totally unexpected. She wished to do something new, something that she had never done before. First she climbed her way up to the top of the Blueberry House of Surprise. The House was a museum and an archive where all the old rubbish from the blueberry kingdom was kept. You could come across items as common as old egg shells or stumble upon broken pieces of an ancient Berry Ming Dynasty vase. Nobody ever went in there except for the lonely Bleuchamp, the Artist, looking for inspiration for his next piece of never - finished art work.

 Blueberryess noticed a beautiful looking book. She got really interested in it, not just because of the way it looked but also because it was huge. It was a photo album of the Humans who ate Blueberries just like herself. It took her a lot of effort to open the giant book; the cover page was very heavy. When she finally managed to open it, she read, on the first page, the text “The most beautiful Gothic Cathedrals in the world” (Blueberress is a polyglot, she knows 121 different dialects). She started looking at the photos, the next Gothic Cathedral was more beautiful and more extraordinary then the last one. When she came to page 37, what she looked upon totally stunned her. It was a building so beautiful and so intricate in its construction that it looked unreal. It was the Cathedral in Siena, in Italy. Poor Blueberryess, for what she saw totally knocked her off her feet. She lay down on the Photo of the Cathedral, opened her eyes as wide as she could, and tried to suck the beauty of the Cathedral out of the photograph. After a while she closed her eyes and started sucking the sense of the Cathedral through her nose. Her dreams totally took control of her. But Blueberryess would not be Blueberryess if she did not start to turn her dreams into reality. She stood up, and then fell back. She was so totally committed to the idea that she had to find a way to get to see the Cathedral. She was in another state of mind. She did not watch her step and tripped on something rectangular. This rectangular thing had a window, and inside that a spool. As she kicked this thing with her leafy foot, the thing made a sound loud enough to make her fall backwards. She fell onto something soft. She looked at what it was that helped her break her fall. It was magic mushrooms. She was so hungry that she started eating them.

 The mushrooms, the music and the words that came out of the rectangular thing “...You can dance, Friday night and the lights are low, night is young and you are the dancing Queen, young and sweet, only seventeen, dancing Queen........you can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life and when you get the chance......dancing Queen… “ put her in the weirdest state.

She was still in this condition when Blueberryer found her. When he first came upon her he thought “Again, she has eaten those mushrooms”. He had stems hanging down on the ends of some beans in his hands. He did not have to think long about it; he wrapped one end of the stems around Blueberryess's hands and the other end around his own hand. He thought to himself. “Whatever happens, at least I have got her tied up and under my control”. And he did have her under control, but of course only physically. Her mind and soul where far away from anyone’s control, she was inaccessible. She was the Dancing Queen in the enchanted world of Sieneses golden Madonnas, angels, San Francesco and all her mystical and mesmerizing dreams.

Dancing Queen from the Blueberry Land Series by  Kasia  B.T. 

Dancing Queen - details 

                                         

Gothic Cathedrals and the Brick

I love Gothic Churches (or should I say Gothic Cathedrals because the English speaking people use it as a synonym for all the Gothic churches, Cathedrals or not). They are a creation of a genius spirit, mind and fantasy. They are colossal, huge and arrogant in their gigantism, gigantology, gigantomachy. (what is the best description?!) The sphere inside the Gothic Church is only one of its kind and is very mysterious; and of course the architecture and the ornamentation is unique as well.

I can’t remember how old I was, 4 or 5 when I saw my first Gothic Church in real. I mean an old Gothic Church, not one in Neogothic style. It was in Gdansk in Poland. I was only a child but still I can remember my surprise that fairy like building could also exist in a real world. In my realm. (I grow up in a Communist country, with the communist architecture!) Of course when you are small and short everything seems huge.

But the St. Mary’s Church is really a huge one. The Church is is the largest brick church in the world, and one of the largest Brick Gothic buildings in Europe. It is 105.5 m long, and the navie 66 m wide. Inside the church is room for 25,000 people. It is an aisled hall church with a transept (Build between 1343- 1496). The Polish name is Bazylika Mariacka. The long proper name should be this: Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The church was severely damaged in the World War II, during the storming of Danzig city by the Red Army in March 1945. Fortunately, most of the artworks from the interior survived, as they were evacuated for safekeeping to the villages surrounding the city. Many of these have returned to the church, but some are displayed in various museums around Poland. I read in some magazine that the Polish Church does everything to secure their return. I hoop so, because they belong to this building.

From the moment when I saw my first real Gothic Church, every time when we was visiting a new place, city, country, I always wanted to know if there is a Gothic church there. My Mum thought for a moment that I was a profound believer in god, in the Catholic god of course. But I wasn’t, I didn’t actually like the idea about such a powerful and horrific creator. I probably felt in love with the Gothic style, without knowing this. With the wonderful ornamentation, the gargoyles and the dragons. The mythical, mystical and profound creation of the medieval people.

The brick Gothic architecture is different to the French Gothic Style of building. Using less of more only bricks delimited the ornamentation possibilities of the architects. You can say that the Brick Gothic is a reduced style of Gothic architecture but you can also see it as a a different style of Gothic by using the bricks. The countries where the Brick Gothic was common were: North Germany and all the countries around the Baltic Sea; all are without natural rock resources.

Personally I prefer the rock Gothic, the real French Gothic with all the ornamentation, with the dragons, with the gargoyles. I will tell more about this subject in the next post.

(If you are interesting in more information about the history of this church, go to Wiki; Wikipedia has an interesting article about the St. Mary’s Church in Gdansk; available in English).

The Last Judgment, Triptych by Hans Memling

The Last Judgment by Hans Memling

Hans Memling isn't Hieronymus Bosch but he was absolutely one of the best primitives of his time.
And his altars still are the precious of some Gothic Churches. The triptych The Last Judgement belonged a long time to a Gothic Church in Gdansk. After the Second World War it has been moved to The National Museum in Gdansk. What you see in the Church St. Mary's Church in Gdansk is a copy, a great one.

Gothic Cathedrals and dragons

I love Gothic Art, especially Gothic Cathedrals. Tomorrow I will post a great post about both of them......it is to late now. Till tomorrow........
For now, the Gothic Cathedral in Polen, Krakow.....