I had the great good fortune to live over two-thirds of my life with Andrew Ladis, a man who loved art, and in spite of being profoundly deaf, loved music as well, which he could feel and hear only at its loudest. It was a hindrance perhaps but not a handicap, as the greatest sopranos can sing pretty loud, and he tried to hear them all. He was Greek, and so Maria Callas and Teresa Stratos were among his favorites, but his favorite aria had to have been “Vissi d’Arte,” because, just like Tosca, he lived for art of all kinds — aural, tactile and, of course, literary and visual. Were he here with me now, during these difficult times, he would be reading to me “The Decameron” and then, as an antidote to both the horror and the laughter occasioned by these tales, he would turn to Dante’s “Paradiso.”
Further, he would urge me to study the online images of Gail Solberg’s current exhibition, just opened in Perugia, in a museum that unfortunately closed to the public the day after the opening, a phantom exhibition that no one will see in situ. I believe he would weep at the beauty and majesty of these works by Taddeo di Bartolo (Sienese, 1312 – 1422); for his colleague and friend Gail, whose magisterial catalogue and judicious choice of works may be overlooked, except by scholars of the period, without a public presentation; and for all the people of his beloved Italy, who will not have the chance to find solace in Gail’s exhibition of works of art that call to mind and provoke the spiritual, no matter the extent of one’s belief in what these panels depict.
Andrew, perhaps to some extent because he was deaf (he decidedly did not like such euphemisms as “hard of hearing,” especially after seeing above his bed in the hospital the sign “H o H”), and because he read lips fluently, reveled in the visual arts, whether the raw, almost brutal realism of Alice Neel (1900 – 1984); the wonder of 8th-century Coptic textiles, Egyptian, Syrian and Ethiopian; the starkness of paintings by Lawren Harris (1885 – 1970); anything by the direct carver Selma Burke (1910 – 1995); or the pellucid (to him) perfection of Korean ceramics. Art for Andrew had no borders, no nationalities, no restrictions, no race, no restraints of time. The funniest sentence he ever heard or read was “Painting is dead.” He thought Giotto of the Italian Trecento the greatest abstract painter of all.
Andrew also would have reminded me that this plague is not the first, just as AIDS was not the last and is still with us even as the new one rages. He stimulated my interest during the 1980s in hagiography, especially with the legend and life of St. Sebastian (Rome, 256 – 288), the battle-grizzled, 3rd-century soldier who stubbornly defied the Emperor Diocletian by professing rather often and a little too loudly his Christianity and, thus, was martyred for it. For reasons still debated, artists changed him from a prematurely aged, irascible zealot to a comely, even winsome, youth. I believe this was partially because they wanted to express the waste, the loss of beauty and sanctity to a vengeful and angry ruler. His representation as a muscular, usually post-pubescent man also gave those artists irreproachable reasons to study and paint the male semi-nude.
Andrew also would have told me of Sicily’s native Rusulia, later Sta. Rosalia (a.k.a., La Santuzza, “the Little Saint,” Kingdom of Sicily, 1130 – 1166) whose sacred relics “saved” Palermo from the ravages of plague in the early 17th century. He would have regretted, as do I, the ironic quarantine of the painting of her by Anthony van Dyck, scheduled to have appeared in an exhibition celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Metropolitan Museum, now closed due to COVID-19.
He would have reminded me of his own cache of research images of St. Roch (born in Montpelier, 1255; died in Voghera, 1327), a 14th-century pilgrim whom believers invoke against mortal illness. He was a full-service saint: the patron of safety from cholera; relief of knee problems; the sufferers of plague and skin diseases; of bachelors; of diseased cattle; of dogs (Bless him!); of the falsely accused; of invalids; of grave diggers; of second-hand dealers of merchandise (read pawnbrokers); of pilgrims; of apothecaries; and, specifically, of the Diocese of Caloocan (part of metropolitan Manila). He is venerated in Dolo (near Venice), Parma, other cities and villages in Italy, the Philippines, San Roque (in Spain) and in Portugal and Brazil in São Roque.
All three—Rosalia, Sebastian and Roch—are welcome in our town, at my house, anytime, but especially now.
Authored by:
William U. Eiland
