satyrica

finally made it to the Caravaggio exhibiton yesterday: classical art's not really something that excites me but for some reason I'd been quite keen to go; there are relatively few paintings (16 I think) but that works quite well as it means each is hung quite monumentally and there's no sense of pictures being crowded in; it's his later years and the subject matters weren't necessarily those of his that most interest me but the richness and artistry of these 400 year old masterpieces was still amazing, particularly the depiction of darkness and light. It feels impossible to imagine, even having been personally steeped in Christianity for so much of my life, what it must have been to exist in a society in the grip of counter-reformatory zeal where every aspect of intellectual and creative life was so monopolised by religious thought.

then in the evening I went to watch The Now Show being recorded for Radio 4 with Punt & Dennis and Marcus Brigstoke and others which was pretty good fun; there was some particularly vitriolic Pope-bashing which was entertaining- as they pointed out, any offence was more than outweighed by the several weeks of Papal fawning we have had to endure from the BBC et al. of late. Good to see the Spanish Prime Minister pressing onwards with his agenda of loosening the Church's influence over political matters in Spain, on its way to becoming the third European country to legalise gay marriage; vive the secular society.