WRITER'S BLOCK IN SIENA

 I have writer´s block! Well, I have no inspiration to write anything.  Usually, after returning from a trip, I am eager to share my experience.  Over the Christmas period, I spent five enjoyable days in Siena, Tuscany.  The city is a UNESCO World Heritage site, renowned for its preserved Medieval architecture, its vibrant 13, 14 & 15th centuries school of painting, its horse races, the Palio, and its tasty food.

I am facing two stumbling blocks.  First, my feeling of mediocrity after reading One Month in Siena by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hisham Matar.  In 2018, he explored the city and sought distraction and solace in the company of the Sienese painters (from the above-mentioned period).  Matar was captivated by the knowledge of the human body that the painters tried to convey through their art.  I bought the book in November 2024, when browsing the shelves of Barnes & Noble bookshop, in Manhattan.  To better appreciate the message of the painters, I should have read the book before visiting Siena’s museums. Sienese’s paintings are mostly religious, many dedicated to The Virgin Mary, the city’s protector.  Even after enjoying the exhibition Siena: The Rise of Paintings, 1300-1350 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, many of these paintings looked too similar and unvarying to my secular and untrained eyes.  Matar educated me, post facto.

The second obstacle is my current mixed feelings towards the 2025 policy reversal of tech billionaires.  I am angry at these monopolistic, hypocritical, and sycophantic bosses who are falling over themselves to kiss Trump’s ring.  I have never been addicted to Facebook (Meta: Zuckerberg is the worst brown-noser of the lot!)  Nonetheless, I feel trapped by my dependence on Gmail.com, and Blogspot.com (both owned by Google) and WhatsApp (Meta). They provide us with functional and free services, but as there is never a free lunch, we surrender our personal data for this convenience.  Now, I resent being hostage of a guy like Zuk who gushes about “masculine energy” because women and minorities have “neutered and emasculated” society.

I am a modest “blogger”. I write in English to stimulate my brains and not to collect👍. Writing is a selfish venture, not a vanity pursuit. Feedback from my friends is always welcome, a means to stay connected. My Facebook account Cal Visson is on snooze, and Cal is a fifty something man, unpersonal.  I closed my Twitter account when Musk bought it, prescient?

As we cannot go back to the cave age, I put my misgivings aside and gather my thoughts on Siena.  As a geologist, I initially associated Siena with its famous earth pigment, not with its painting school.  Earth Sienna or “terra di Siena” is yellow brown in its natural state (raw sienna) as used in cave paintings.  When heated, it turns into a rich brown red.  Caravaggio and Rembrandt popularized the color.  Therefore, let us start with paintings, Siena’s forte. 

From the second half of the 13^th century, the Sienese School of paintings (and frescoes) grew and flourished by following the Byzantine icon styles and Gothic art.  The paintings shine thanks to their delicate and elegant lines, decorative patterns, variety of colors, generous use of gold, vivid narrative, mysticism, and humor (when one pays attention to details).  Painters were busy churning out opulent religious panel paintings, altarpieces, and frescoes.  What impresses an art philistine like me is the quantity of art produced during this brief period.  Siena counts half a dozen first class museums, shock-a-block with paintings made by celebrity painters like Duccio, Simone Martini, and the brothers Lorenzetti.  Siena’s golden age was cut short by the Black Death of 1348/9 and from 1559 on, its political subjugation to Florence.  I took a liking to painter Sano di Pietro (1405-1481), a post Black Death painter.  Prolific and versatile, di Pietro also had a good sense of business. I liked his easily recognizable whimsical and fantastic paintings (See below).

Siena may have been founded by the Etruscans (seventh century BC) who lived on the surrounding hills.  The Santa Maria de la Scala Museum complex, a former Medieval hospital, displays an amazing collection of Etruscan terracotta cremation urns (below). 

The low-keyed charm of the well-preserved historical center attracts lots of tourists; they stroll through its charming narrow streets to explore the seventeen contrade or city districts which were set-up during the Middle Age.  Each contrada has its own lore, tradition, church, museum, fountain, and Xmas tree.  They were named for animals such as eagles caterpillars, snails, giraffes, etc.  Each year, ten of them compete in the Palio horse race.  Tourists spend most of their time loitering on the Piazza del Campo where the Palio takes place in summer.  The Campo is a big open-air restaurant where foodies indulge in local delicacies.  Wild boar stew anybody? Conversely, these tourists spend little time in museums, and therefore my group and I very much enjoyed their peaceful ambience.

A friend and I are travelling to Asunción, Paraguay for Carnival.  I hope to write something about our experience there, no writer's block.