Remember when you were in school and had to ask for a hall pass like the one above to use the restroom? I went to an all-boys’ high school physically attached to an all-girls’ high school, so more adventurous souls took that hall pass to the other side of the building, where the young ladies awaited. Catching onto that scheme, the priests who ran the school designed a hall pass approximately the size of an SUV car door—the uncoolest thing you could possibly imagine holding while sweet-talking some sophomore on her way to gym class.Thanks to Abbeville Press, you can own a “hall pass” just a little smaller but a whole lot cooler. One lucky reader of Art Blog By Bob will win a copy of Nicole Dacos’ The Loggia of Raphael: A Vatican Art Treasure, a huge, lavishly illustrated, beautifully written, $125 USD book exploring one of the great, semi-forgotten treasures of the Vatican. (My full review is here.) Virtually walk with popes and kings down the hall that Raphael and his workshop decorated for Pope Leo X, setting the standard for ostentatious displays of power ever since by harking back to the Ancient Rome of Nero. What could be cooler than that?
Here’s all you have to do:
(1) Visit the Abbeville Press page for The Loggia of Raphael HERE.
(2) Using the text on that page, answer the following question:
What are the fanciful arabesques enlivened with a wide variety of human and animal figures modeled after ancient Roman wall paintings that fill the Loggia of Raphael called?
[Hint: It’s the only word in the first paragraph that appears in quotations. Can I make this any easier?]
(3) E-mail your answer to me at ArtBlogByBob@hotmail.com by midnight, Friday, November 7th.
The winner will be announced on Monday, November 10th.
Don’t miss this opportunity to join the cool kids in the hall with a copy of Nicole Dacos’ The Loggia of Raphael: A Vatican Art Treasure! And while you’re strolling around the Abbeville Press site, check out The Abbeville Manual of Style blog by Abbeville’s Arbiters of Style, the best art publisher bloggers in the business and conductors of fascinating interviews.
[Many thanks to Abbeville Press for sponsoring this amazing giveaway.]
Faux Legalese:
(1) Please, only one entry per e-mail address.
(2) All employees of Art Blog By Bob and their families are ineligible for this prize. Sorry, Mom. Alex, you’ll have to wait until you’re strong enough to lift Daddy’s copy.
(3) All previous winners of Art Blog By Bob contests are ineligible for this prize. Sorry, Andy.
(4) Any disputes regarding the outcome of this contest must be submitted to the official contest judge, Alex. He’s two. Ever try arguing with a two year old? Good luck with that.
