An Homage to Venice and Marco Polo
Book series LOUNGE 2 – volume X
Editor: Kurt Ries
Venice stirs admiration and wonder and exerts a strange power over the imagination. At times its appearance resembles a theater production, at times a mirage from 1001 Nights. Strolling through it feels like sliding into a daydream – shimmering like mother-of-pearl, everything solid dissolves into water and colors. For centuries, the poetic melancholy of the lagoon city has been challenging artists and poets with its magic. Even its name stirs up associations with “Venus” who sprang from the foam of the sea.
As Goethe’s “Venetian Epigrams”, this book also features artworks that lack any direct connection with Venice because inspiration may be expressed in the most diverse facets. In this spirit, 63 artists from 29 countries have come together on the occasion of the 700th anniversary of Venice-born traveler Marco Polo’s death, to celebrate the miracle of “La Serenissima” with contemporary imagery. The editor of this book has divided the artworks from around the world into chapters and added selected haiku poems, exquisite quotes, descriptive statements, and photo images. The result is a multifaceted homage from their imaginative perspective.
International Artworks and Poems
Bilingual art gift book with 77 artworks and 28 haiku poems from 29 countries.
Art and Poetry from around the world
In the Middle Ages, the trade connections of the wealthy Italian maritime city of commerce called Venice took a completely different path than the political relations between Europe and the powerful Mongol Empire. Marco Polo`s travelogue must have been an informative non-fiction book about the legendary riches of the East and their countries of origin. The tight connection with Byzantine and Oriental culture noticeably influenced the city’s architecture. The admiration of distant cultures has led to oriental borrowings even in the facade of the Doge’s Palace. St. Mark’s Basilica, too, was based on the model of Constantine’s Apostoleion. Weightlessly balanced, Venice brims with traces of “the other”. Whether it is owed to the city’s strict policy of neutrality, its former lagoon location, or simply the respect people have always had for its incomparable beauty – Venice has never been destroyed and ended up being the stage for a flourishing intercultural life.
‘Inspiration Venice – Inspiration Venedig’ (An Homage to Venice and Marco Polo)
The printed book is available in the book trade and in internet bookshops.
- Publisher: Re Di Roma-Verlag
- Language: English, German
- Size: 21 x 21 cm
- Hardcover
- ISBN-10 : 3988852678
- ISBN-13 : 978-3988852670
Book participants can purchase any number of the book from the German publisher or bookseller Peecho at the reduced author’s price. Please find more information here!
Book design awards – as part of the book project:
- Cover – 1st Prize: Paul Ygartua (Canada)
- Back cover – 2nd Prize: Maki Nagumo (Japan), Ramón Rivas (Spain)
- Titel page – 3rd Prize: Riitta Nelimarkka-Seeck (Finland)
- Chapter pages – Honorable Mentions: Ai-Wen Wu Kratz – USA, Bing Huang – USA, Chikara Komura – Japan, Ivana Gagić Kičinbači – Croatia, Takanori Iwase – Japan, Ursula Müri – Switzerland, Victoria Herring – USA
Please see in the book!
