Carnival of Venice ****************************************************************************************** * Carnival of Venice ****************************************************************************************** There are only a few other festivals around the world that are as popular and well-known a of Venice – and only a few places can claim to be as worth seeing and as romantic as this historical city. But is this really the reality of living in Venice? We have spoken to Ele a History of Art Erasmus student from the Ca' Foscari University in Venice, who is current the Catholic Theological Faculty of Charles University, to find out more and also to learn education project “Carnival of Venice”, which Elena has prepared under the guidance of the School programme. Elena, Let’s start with the Carnival. How did it begin and how is it celebrated today? Wha participate in an event like this? The Carnival originates from the old pagan Roman tradition of Saturnalia, by way of the me Day, in which social conventions and class divisions were forgotten and poor people were a year, to wear masks and to mock their masters.    According to historical documents, the first Carnival-like event in Venice dates back to 1 the almost disappearance of the tradition between the end of the 18th century and 1979 (th official reintroduction of the Carnival tradition), Venetians never lost their “Carnival” Venice in itself is a “freak of nature” among other cities: from the fascinating legend of to being built on a platform of hundreds of thousands of wood piles, the history of the ri the mighty maritime empire, Casanova and Goldoni, la Biennale and the Carnival. It's a mir dream, within a postcard… Just another example to give you the idea: in the past, the doge (= the governor of Venice the “Serenissima State”) used to establish the peaceful agreement between the city and the importance in a city of merchants, as Venice was) in a very peculiar “marriage” ceremony i the lagoon, throwing a golden ring into the water to seal their mutual respect and coopera theatrical enough? “Carnival of Venice” was also the title of your Europe Meets School project which you held Basic Art school. The children in your youngest class (Elena taught altogether 3 different introduced to the most popular figures of Commedia dell’arte: Harlequin (Arlecchino) and C these typical masks for the Carnival? Who dresses up – is it just the children, or the adu I tried to recreate the atmosphere of the Carnival with the children in my classes. To sta them some photos of the city (bridges, water canals, boats and islands), then I focused on Square, the main square where all the masked people gather together – this includes adults majority of these people are adults! – and most of the celebrations for the Carnival take A very special part of the Carnival is “The flight of the Angel”: a girl dressed like a do a wire, which is suspended across the square and she descends on the crowd throwing sweets This marks the beginning of the Carnival.  The main task that the children in my class undertook was to work on Harlequin's tradition the name, it isn’t related to the delicious Czech chocolate cake of the same name (Harleký Italy’s most traditional masques. To adults, Harlequin is the comic handyman, Carlo Goldoni's “servant of two masters”, but is more interesting to look at him as a poor schoolboy whose family was not rich enough to him a brand new dress for the ball. All of his friends gave him a piece of fabric which wa making their clothes, so that Harlequin's mother would be able to sew a suit for him. This be the most beautiful dress ever seen, even though it was too small to be of the right siz suggested to him that he should go on a diet for a couple of days to solve this situation! this story was turned into a nice children's song. But I actually have my own explanation not fitting - he simply ate too much frittelle, the fried carnival cake! The older class you taught had a different assignment – they were to create a paper mosaic view of Venice, e.g. one of the islands with the buildings on it or the port with the bell background. There have been many artists who specialised in painting Venice – which one di and why? The aim of the oldest class’s assignment was to focus on the morphological peculiarity of from the most simple but basic visual approach to the city: sea, horizon and sky. I though interesting because there is nothing comparable to this in Prague. This is why I made the and compare three painters, belonging to three extremely different periods, to understand (and the same views!) can be perceived differently throughout the centuries. I introduced the class to the extremely realistic and photographic-like depiction of Canal (landscape views), the romantic and blurring watercolours by J. M. W. (Joseph Mallord Will with the vibrant effect of the sunset on the mirroring sea, and finally I spoke about Virg almost unknown Venetian painter of the 1950s who brought the idea of sea, horizon and sky meaningful simplification, capturing the very essence of the lagoon. Studying in Venice is certainly a dream for most students of Art History. Was Venice also choice? What is it like to study this subject there? Are there many benefits – do you, for any seminars held at the historical monuments or in galleries? When I first enrolled at university here. my first thought was “I want to see and experien it sinks!” But humour aside, I think studying and living in Venice is the most unique expe can have, more than in other Italian cities like Rome or Florence, especially for a Histor Art student like me. Here nothing has really changed for centuries; when you walk through you see is exactly the way it was in the past. It's not just that you can feel the history step into it! The concentration of museums, exhibitions, international fairs and events is perhaps compa to Paris. For a student of Art or History of Art, it’s like Heaven! So yes, even if maybe properly scheduled class trips to museums or galleries (usually the high number of student difficult to manage during such visits and it also reduces class hours) you can easily do Exploring them is a great asset to your studies.  Venice is a very popular city for tourists and students. However, apart from the main tour we do not really know a lot about the city and what life is like for the people who live t different to living in other cities? Is it uncomfortable to face the masses of tourists th some places where you would not necessarily meet the local people? Venice is not a normal city; it doesn’t have a historical centre surrounded by a metropoli way you could say it’s somewhat like an island. This might sound obvious, while it's not. call it ‘Veniceland’, as I think it’s like a big funfair, comparable to Disneyland. There new buildings, as there isn’t any space for them and everything has been the same for cent meet students and tourists here.  A couple of years ago, we celebrated the “Burial of the City”, because the number of citiz living on the island (= in Venice) decreased to lower than 60,000. They set up an empty co and sailed along Canal Grande, the main S-shaped canal that crosses the whole city. An ala of the population decrease, and at the same time an act of pride of its citizens and obvio demonstrating it is totally coherent with the spectacular spirit of the Carnival, if you t The enormous amount of tourists is particularly annoying during spring and summer time, wh is so massive that even walking to school becomes a tortuous slalom between rucksacks and the university area is outside the main route that goes from the train station to San Marc There are still some pieces of peaceful and genuine Venice, where the only language you he key dialect, the small streets are populated by children playing football and, if you take the sky, you can see fully coloured garlands made of hanging drying clothes. And the sound hundreds bell towers, of course! But I can't tell you where these hidden places are, or I' magic! Thank you for the interview.