Upper Gallery Hagia Sophia

[twopoint]

Byzantine mosaics for ahpookishere (oh, there will be no stopping me now that I have someone to get all geeky about iconography with - with whom I can get all geeky . . . .?)  The cross is from the ceiling of an apse on the lower floor.  The light in Hagia Sophia is other-wordly - it comes from every direction and the mosaics glow from within.  For all my mosaic love the viking graffiti is really my favorite part of the building but I can't find my photo of the carvings.  I like to imagine the viking invaders scrawling: For a good time call, or Gorm was here, or something.   

Comments

[ahpookishere.livejournal.com]

O. M. G.

Hagia Sophia was very high on my list of places to see, and you just pushed it a bit higher. They are all beautiful, but the first picture is my favorite, I think. And in the second, the combination of gold and the blue in the Virgin's robes, my god. *squee into infinity*

[two-point.livejournal.com]

Yep, the first is my favorite. The yellow and the way the light caught the yellow and the detail - I wonder if the answer to all the questions in the universe could have been found in the lower half but it's gone now, so we'll never know for certain. One piece of otherwise useless Hagia Sophia trivia I learned on my last trip was that if the Armenian artist Sinan had not added the four Islamic minarets to each corner of the building the dome would have crumbled in an earthquake a long time ago - the symbolism seems fitting for a country that has always been caught between the two worlds.

Have you decided where to study abroad?

[(Anonymous)]

Oh no, not yet. I'm still very iffy about it. I'll be in Europe all next month, and I want to try and go to Japan late this year/early next year. Studying abroad is askdjalsjd expensive. I think I'll wait to see how my funds are standing by the end of my summer semesters, then maybe apply to do it in Spring. UM MYSTERIOUS BENEFACTORS YA'LL CAN SHOW UP ANY TIME NOW.

not added the four Islamic minarets to each corner of the building the dome would have crumbled in an earthquake a long time ago - the symbolism seems fitting for a country that has always been caught between the two worlds.

That's incredible. *have been looking at pictures of Istanbul.. for.. a long time now*

[ahpookishere.livejournal.com]

Whoops! Logged out by accident!

[two-point.livejournal.com]

Where are you going???

[ahpookishere.livejournal.com]

Ah, a bunch of places. Starting in Berlin, then Prague, Vienna ~ then, meeting some friends in Venice and wandering around Italy until our return flight from Rome. <3 <3

[levadegratchets.livejournal.com]

That golden light, the one at the top, that is just natural light? OOOOH....pure love. I love sunrise and sunset just for that colour alone! Have they touched up any of these? If not, the colours are incredible. Share on, friend. For those of us who can't get there and love this sort of thing, please!

[two-point.livejournal.com]

No touching up - and the light is all natural. I didn't have my tripod with me so I sat down on a stone ledge and braced my arms against my knees and tried to keep my hands from shaking. The Turk kept going on and on about how he'd only visited the place on elementary school field trips - a twenty minute cab drive from his house or a walk across the Galata bridge. The thing I love is that I can make him rediscover his city from a stranger's eyes. We both have been all gushing and happy about the good press Turkey has had this week. Istanbul is the other woman in our house, well, after The Baymare.

View the Baymare's greatness here: her first high schooling jumper course: http://s559.photobucket.com/albums/ss35/VAJumperdude86/?action=view¤t=Mihran2.flv

[questails.livejournal.com]

My GOODNESS! I came into this thread to sigh over the mosaics (an art form that never ceases to awe me. Glass is such enduring stuff; one can create art that is, all in a breath, so delicate and yet so brilliant, even hundreds of years later), and ended up with heart-throbs over The Baymare. My goodness....! Jumping isn't my area of expertise, but even I can see that this mare has incredible scope. She's high in the bridle, grumbling about being rated to the fences, and still it's as if she hardly has to work to clear them. W-o-w-!, and dang.. she is going to be brilliant.

[two-point.livejournal.com]

Oh, The Baymare. She came to us as a consignment sale and the Turk kept sabotoging all the potential buyers. He kept her as a "failed" jumper for three years, focused on dressage and one day we poppped her over a fence and that happened. We're hoping for a mini-prix by the end of the summer. She's the princess of the barn when the Turk isn't taking that role.

Tell me about your riding!

[questails.livejournal.com]

Princess of the barn, when the Turk isn't... LOL!!!! Okay, I need to write that down somewhere.

My riding, oh! Wow. My horse is a disreputable, pasture-puff Arabian. Here is a photo of Quest; he's the bay on the right. The black mare is his half-sister.

http://thepeep.pucemoose.com/horses/siblings.jpg

I like how intelligent this photo makes him look! ;) Once upon a time we schooled dressage, someday (soon, I hope) I'll do so again, I miss it terribly. Quest has very good gaits (He's half Polish; sire line to Bask) and a bad tendency to overflex (poor early training, alas); I have quiet hands, and a horrid lower leg. In undignified moments, I whine that anyone's leg would slip back on a horse that's only eighteen inches wide (Arabian... ), but you and I both know that's not true. ;)

[two-point.livejournal.com]

What incredible feet Quest has! We have seen so many bad Arabs lately that it is wonderful to see a really lovely one, which he is. You cracked me up about the leg excuse - I'm stealing that one. The love of my life is a half-Arab, the last sport horse out of a breeder who took Garlius to the top. His name is Choo and he looks like a cob - but he has that gorgeous Arab face. Actually he's a human in a horse suit (if that *is* a compliment, not sure) and he woos women, big eyes, resting head on shoulders, etc. He could do anything and I'd forgive him.

Don't know where you're located, but when the time comes for some serious dressage study I've been known to barter the Turk out for art.

[questails.livejournal.com]

Quest wouldn't turn any heads; anytime I show someone a picture of him, I usually feel that I should also be posting a scan of his papers, and adding 'See? Purebred Arabian. Bloodtyped and all that woof.' LOL! I love him, though; no amount of money would pry him from me. He has got huge feet, and legs with bone; both of with I adore. (Legs with substance are my weirdest horse fetish. It could be pepto-pink roan with muley ears, but if its legs were straight and clean with lots and lots of bone, I'd blissfully ogle.)

Never show me a picture of Choo, unless you want to turn me to a life of horse-thieving crime. A half-Arabian sporthorse with a charming, rougish disposition? Man of my dreams, right there. <3

I am in Tennessee; between Knoxville and Nashville. I would gladly barter art for dressage study; although it would take me a few months of knocking around with no stirrups to get to a point where I wasn't wasting the Turk's time!