December 11, 2012 in 2012
Roma & Borromini is an 8.5″ x 11″ book based on this blog material collected in May 2012 by David and Jenna while in Rome. There is an emphasis on the work of the baroque architect Francesco Borromini.
Or get the PDF. 15Mb
July 10, 2012 in 2012
We have decided to show the rest of our sketching along with our Pantheon drawings as one last gallery. Here they are!
July 10, 2012 in 2012
This last post shows the extent of Borromini’s work that we were able to visit, or in some cases view from the exterior if we were unable to catch opening hours. It has been a long time coming, for this we apologize. Now the resources have been compiled (first by Wikipedia contributors 😉 ) for you to be able to read at your leisure the story of Borromini and his amazing works. You will be able to see through our eyes and camera lenses the way we viewed ‘his world’ in Rome.
San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane
St. Peter’s Basilica – grille of Cappella del SS Sacramento – It doesn’t look like this page actually talks about Borromini’s contribution, which were the gates of the Blessed Sacrament chapel. You can read on the Borromini page that he may have had a hand in the Baldacchino, which I have read in places as well, however it is often credited to Bernini. It goes in depth about one of the most, if not the most, staggering works of art and architecture – a very interesting read.
Sant Andrea delle Fratte – dome and campanile
San Giovanni dei Fiorentini – High Altar
June 1, 2012 in 2012
To start, we owe you a couple days of pictures and sketches!
I am actually going to start by saying that we made it back to Minneapolis after a long, long day of traveling. I am glad to be home. There is something about coming home to Minnesota that is as exciting as venturing off to other countries to explore different cultures – comfort I guess. This intro is a procrastination of sorts. I know the trip is over, i’m sitting in my own living room, but wrapping it up on the blog is the ‘period’ to our adventure. My hope now is that our stories and experiences in Italy will inspire those around us to embark on similar travels – that has, after all, been our goal all along. So I think what I’ll do as the sign-off to our section of the SPQR blog is to recap some of my favorite moments of the trip including some that really helped to give me a sense of life in Italy and specifically in Rome as well.
Most generally, my favorite part of this trip was all of the new things Dave and I were able to experience that we hadn’t on our last visit to Italy. I like to see as much as I can of new places and things so the more new things the better! The list is very long on what this actually includes so I’ll give a few examples. 1 – Ostia Antica, and generally more ruins in Rome. Ostia Antica was cool because it was like a playground as ruins go. Barely anything was blocked off so climbing on the ruins and walking within them was allowed and we had a lot of fun doing it. I really liked seeing more ancient history explained as well. Clues to ancient times are often buried until a group of people feels the urgency to unearth it. The people of Rome are proud to share the history beneath them with visitors like me. 2 – Giving Florence a chance. The first time we were in Italy, Florence was a very abbreviated stop due to various timing issues. This time Florence was an important first stop and I’m really glad for that. Seeing the David, climbing the Duomo, residing right in the middle of the city center – these are some of the highlights from our stay. 3 – Venice was entirely new to me and completely worthwhile. A city on the water – fascinating. I continue to think about the effort that the citizens must put in to dealing with the Aqua Alta – where only the building facades show evidence that the salty sea has a less than positive effect on life there.
Getting the answers to our daily questions was another part of the trip that I really enjoyed. Constantly questions would come up that we couldn’t as a group answer, so they would be stored away in our brains for nightly wiki-fari’s. Information is at the tip of our fingers using the internets and our group was curious to have all questions answered before starting the next day. I think this really allowed us to pack in as much knowledge on many different things during the day knowing that later that night we would be able to get the story on everything that was not immediately presented.
Another extremely important part of my time in Rome was when David and I would stop for periods of time to take in, through sketch, what we were seeing. Not only did those sketch moments allow us to rest our running feet, but we slowed down enough to consider the architecture. We were slowed enough to represent the architecture through drawing and throughout our time drawing make observation of the people around us – to get a sense of other people’s experience of the space.
A couple very specific events that stand out in my memories are the Panda moving and the choir in Sienna. That was a good day in Sienna! The boys moving the Fiat Panda was probably one of the funniest things that happened on our trip. It is a good thing that small cars are the way to get around on the road otherwise that may not have happened at all. Other funny car things to note: we saw multiple smarts cars corner backed into a parallel parking spaces (they were perpendicular to the larger cars), Italians making up their own parking spaces in the middle of the roads, smaller cars might make people drive more crazily. The Sienna Cathedral choir performance was a pretty cool experience to get to witness. I was so impressed by them and the building being able to take their voices and project them – very cool.
When walking around Rome, I couldn’t help but to spot every instance of ‘SPQR’ all across the city. It was kind of fun – a little distracting because I just couldn’t stop! 🙂 Kelly’s last post from her trip I think put this in my head as something that I wanted to look out for. I didn’t realize that it would consume my mind so effectively. She had noted that this has been a banner of sorts since ancient times all the way to now. I kept seeing ‘SPQR’ and thinking about it as the banner that marked the services to the people of Rome and those of us visiting. A label that announces that someone is keeping the lights on in the dark of night, the water running and clean, the streets clean, public transportation running, historic sites preserved and ready for thralls of tourists. It is a symbol that unifies the city
We witnessed a lot of other cool examples of communities coming together to make thing happen. In Rome – Critical Mass – the mass of bikers filling Via dei Nazionale, coming together in an effort to bring safer bike ways to the people of Rome. Many times we saw shop workers working with each other to come up with change when all we had to give them were 50 euro bills. Even the street vendors worked together in an effort to move their product. We never really figured out what kind of network was going on between them, but we saw vendors on phones communicating location of polizia so they knew to get out of the area if any were near by. In Venice we saw many guys with illegal knock off bags sprinting down the street… Cinque Terre showed the most amazing community togetherness. I didn’t write about Cinque Terre originally. I had been there two years ago, before the mudslides. I remember the color, the bustle of happy people, the paradise that is Cinque Terre. The hotel we had stayed in two years ago was totally gutted along with many other shops coming into Monterosso al Mare. The devastation of the mudslides made this visit particularly hard for me. I did enjoy the hiking we did and the rental lady we worked with, the sea always visible, and the random cat roaming around, but I couldn’t get out of my mind the memories of what the towns had been like before. The thing that kept my spirits up was the way in which we could see the people working so hard to get the towns back to that place. We were told how the surrounding towns of Cinque Terre had taken in residents left homeless by the mudslides and how people were volunteering their time to make things right again. It was good to see the strength of that community.
The last favorite thing I’ll leave you with, because I could go on and on, is how Dave and I sought out all of Borromini’s work. I think I will plan to do an additional post just on this to really finish things off, but for now I can say that I really enjoyed this time with Dave. Some of the sites we visited without the others and I liked having that time with my best friend to really be able to take in the work of that Baroque genius. I would have liked to have shared all of the spots with the others, but I think it worked out to show them our sketches and pictures.
Look forward to a final post about all of our Borromini visits and pictures from the last few days!
May 31, 2012 in 2012
Our final full day in Rome was a good change of pace. With only six days in the city, we did some serious walking (20+ miles a day) to pack in all the sites we wanted to see. The tone of today was slightly different – everything slowed down and we got one last chance to take in Rome and reflect on an excellent 15 days in Italy. After waking up, Jenna and I walked to the Pantheon from our hostel, which was located a few blocks east of Termini station. I sat down at one of the restaurants located in the piazza in front of the Pantheon and ordered an espresso. It came with some apple tart treats and a glass of water, which was a nice surprise. I got out the sketchbook and spent the next hour and a half working my way through a drawing and a several more espressos. I must say, that as much as planning out drawing sessions in our short time in Rome seemed like a lot to tackle, it was during these drawing sessions that everything slowed down for me, and I was able to find some clarity on the particular building and its significance to me.
After our sketch session, Jenna and I reunited with the group and set off to see a final few sites around the city. As it was currently 1pm-3pm when most of the churches close, we walked up to the Borghese Gardens and rented a 4 person bike thinking it would allow us to view more of their massive expanse in the short time we had. The bike turned out to be more of an adventure in itself but we were out of time for visiting the Borghese’s museum’s so I’ll say the injected fun and silliness didn’t really hurt our viewing of the gardens. At 3pm, we returned the bike carriage and headed off to a few final churches. We hadn’t yet visited the Ecstasy of St. Terasa by Bernini and located in Santa Maria Del’Vittoria. The church was hopping with tours and we were able to hear a few compelling accounts of the statues history by guides.
When considering what we might see in Rome, Jenna and I had come up with a plan to focus some of our attention on Borromini’s work. We had both taken a liking to Baroque architecture and especially Borromini during Leon Satkowski’s class on Baroque Architecture in our undergraduate studies at the UofM. Not only was Borromini a true pioneer of architecture and widely misunderstood during his time, but to this day his churches are beautiful on a level not achieved by other architecture in the city. A great example of this idea can be found in Borromini’s San Carlo alla Quattro Fontane (S. Carlino for short because it is tiny) and Bernini’s San Andrea Quirranale, located a block apart from one another. We had both these churches yet to visit so we headed over to them. Inside S. Quirranale, there is a wide array of materials and colors, rich red marbles and gold guilding. The oval plan culminates in an oval dome covered in gold pattern and lit from a cupola filled with yellow glass. The effect does have a beauty but there is also a certain heavy handedness to it. Inside S. Carlino is an entirely different story. Everything is white and Borromini has relied on geometry, shadow, and light to create a space that becomes transcendent. The oval dome is coffered with a pattern of crosses, hexagons, and hexagons within ovals – each shape reflecting the floor plan which contains a complexity to it, a combination of oval, cross, and hexagon. We have been reading up on Borromini and apparently many of his designs that were considered somewhat wild and outlandish at the time are in fact, highly intricate and exacting works of geometry.
As our final, and fitting, stop in Rome, we headed west towards the river to visit Borromini’s grave. Borromini requested to be buried in San Giovanni dei Fiorentini along with his relative and mentor, Carlo Maderno. On the outside of the church we were able to read that many architectural master’s had work on the church over time. These included Carlo Fontana, Maderno, Michelangelo, and Borromini himself (he did the high alter). Upon walking inside, it was easy to see why he had requested this church as his final resting place. It was fairly unelaborate in nature; with little color and some wonderful lighting from the main dome and the high alter. With a sense of closure we walked over to the Piazza Navona and shared a drink and some people watching as the sun set around us. Tomorrow, we’ll head for home but you may still here a few more words from us yet.
David j.
May 29, 2012 in 2012
As Jenna mentioned, yesterday we visited the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, and the ancient Roman Forum. I had been to these places before on our first visit to Rome but was eager to revisit them. After a wet morning walk, we arrived at the site, now fully equipped with colorful umbrellas and ponchos that we were assured, “weren’t made in Chine”. Rain certainly had not held back the crowds but we were able to use an “all access” pass we had bought to circumvent the ticket line and start exploring the building. One of the things I realized as we were coming back to visit these sites, is that even though I had learned about them in class (and I swear I was paying attention) I didn’t know that much about their origins, and how they changed over time. Between reading everything I could at the sites (the colosseum had a nice exhibit) and digging around on the internet, I’m starting to get a little better idea of what went on.
The Colosseum was begun around 74 AD by the emperor Vespasian. He chose to locate the site at the end of the Roman forum where the previous, and crazy emperor Nero, had his own private lake. The information suggested that Vespasian was making a gesture to the citizens. Originally called the Flavian Ampitheatre (after the ruling Flavian dynasty), the Colosseum name is likely due to being nicknamed that after a colossal bronze statue that was located just outside the building. I also started learning info on what the Colosseum was used for, where different classes of people sat, and how it changed over the eras. All very interesting stuff that I will let you explore on your own. The experience of walking around this 2000 year old building was powerful. Not only is the size still impressive (it could hold 87,000 people) but there is a beauty in the rhythm of the arches used as the structure of the building and now exposed today. I wondered how many of those long, flat, Roman bricks were used in the massive structure. Looking at them, there was something powerful about the idea that such a grand building was made from objects that could be held in the hand. After getting our share of the Colosseum we walked a few blocks and found a place to eat. As we sat in ate, we watched about 20+ locals come in and order food so we felt that we had done well with our pick.
After lunch, we made our way to the entrance to the Palatine Hill and Roman Forum. Flanked on the West by the Circus Maximus, in ancient times the Palatine Hill was covered by emperor palaces and/or wealthy peoples residences. North of the Palatine Hill is the Capitoline Hill which in ancient times housed the most important temple, the Temple of Jupiter. It was the swampy lowland in between these two hills, that would slowly get filled in and become the Roman Forum. For centuries, the Forum acted as the heart of public life and you might argue, embodied the idea SPQR. It was filled with banks, markets, judicial buildings, and temples. Walking around ruins can be difficult at times. It really takes some imagination on the part of the observer to understand what the pile of ruins were really about. In the case of the Forum, there are still some massive structures standing, if only in bits and pieces. These pieces help to imagine the scale and epic-ness of what would have existed 2000 years ago.
In undergrad, I spent a semester doing research on the Roman Triumph event. Triumphs were used to celebrate great military victories of commanders. To get a picture, one can imagine an incredibly lavish parade-like event that started outside the city gates in the Campus Martius, wound its way around the south side of the Palatine Hill, moved through the Forum proper, and eventually up the hill to the Temple of Jupiter. The reality of the Roman Triumph was much deeper and more ritualistic. In ancient Rome, the city walls (boundary lines) and gates were extremely important. The very idea of the Roman Senate (SPQR again) was that matters in the city were conducted in a non-military fashion: military was to be housed outside the city proper. The Triumphal celebration was a ritualistic act where for one day, the city (the senate and people) gave up their power and authority to the triumphant commander who was allowed to enter through the city gates in military garb, make his way through the city collecting gifts, and finally climb the Capitoline Hill and symbolistically capture the city. In short, the triumph was a significant Roman event that took place right on the very paths we were now walking on. Imagining the ancient grounds in this light was a great way to bring the ruins to life for me. ** I should note that I did my best to summarize the triumph form what i researched and that there is still plenty of debates on the exact proceedings and meanings behind it.
Anyway, I hope this gives you an okay idea of our experience at the colosseum and ancient forum.
david j
May 28, 2012 in 2012
Today was rainy. We had planned out at Camp Roma three/four days ago to see the Colosseum, Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum today. Lucky us every outdoor thing that we had planned to see occurred on the rainiest day we’ve been in Italy. Two unfortunates here: 1) walking around the ancient sites in the rain – not entirely fun and 2) couldn’t get the sprint on to the Pantheon… I actually enjoyed the rain for the most part after we bought umbrellas and ponchos – which are not hard to come by two seconds after the first rain drops. We walked from Christina’s Residence because we wanted to make a stop at Santa Maria Maggiore. Bernini is buried there – I still want to visit Borromini’s tomb.
So we walked the Colosseum and the Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. Dave is going to blog more about this when he writes. What we missed two years ago on our Colosseum visit, because we had a tour guide, was the artifact exhibits which I thought were really informative and interesting. I read that a lot of the artifacts were found in the drains because after events in the Colosseum slaves would clean out the stands and deposit the garbage/treasures into the drains. Interesting! What would one find digging around in the drains of today? I had a similar thoughts the other day, actually, that went sort of like this: will anything that we trash last for over 500 years? will it be as awesome to look at as some of the stuff we’ve seen in the archeological museums in Rome? where will our things be found? what will people think of my era when looking back at it through archeology? crazy!!!
Dave and I went to the Mamertine Prison after the Roman Forum – we paid for a tour to see the cistern/prison and a few audio and visual tours and a chapel which holds a relic crucifix. The audio was slightly hard to follow at times, but the message of building up of Rome seemed clear – through the ‘eyes’ of the stones that were the ‘foundation’ of the city. There was also strong religious influence to the message that was being given. St. Peter had baptized people while imprisoned there – the cistern was important to the happenings in the prison during his time. The cistern was important in the history of building the city.
After the Mamertine we went to the Pantheon to sketch. I really messed up the first drawing I was doing – not paying attention to what I was seeing. My second attempt went much better. The Pantheon is another one of those sites that people do not think to respect as a space that people use for worship. So much talking and noise and at intervals of 5 or 10 minutes the loud speaker saying in Italian, English, French, German, and Spanish to ‘please be quiet, thank you’ yet people do not care to listen. I even heard loud comments from fellow English speakers about these messages – obviously ignoring them. I am not perfect, but totally disrespecting the requests of places that are allowing you free entry is something that I cannot understand.
We met up with the others at around 7 and Kj brought us to a gelato shop that had more flavors than I had ever seen in one shop. I bought and ate chocolate/coconut, banana, and champagne. The champagne was quite strong… I loved the chocolate/coconut! yum… I have a plan to buy a large bag tomorrow thanks to Kj bringing me into a store that carries inexpensive huge bags! It will be good as my 2nd personal carry-on on the plane.
Tomorrow Dave and I will be taking a sketch rapid tour of the Pantheon and the rest of the Borromini’s we haven’t gotten to yet. Our afternoon will be a stroll through the Borghese Gardens. Haven’t been there yet so I’m excited. My feet had a lot of very good rest last night and didn’t really get sore today so I’m ready for the gardens tomorrow!
May 28, 2012 in 2012
Europe in general lives quite a different life than your average American. Italy is of course no exception.
Siesta – lunch – everything closes besides food places for two or so hours over lunch and we tourists are left to feed our own stomaches as well – probably a good thing I guess.
Honoring the Sabath? – tried to go to the grocery store a little too late – after 6 pm – didn’t work out. Not sure, but this is probably rooted in the tradition of not working on Sundays.
Tourists – we are everywhere – getting disappointed when timing is not working out. I am super happy I research the Sant Ivo hours! While waiting for the rest of our group to meet up with us, I witnessed a lady who did not get the memo about it closing its door at noon and was extremely downtrodden thereafter.
Our Sunday was really much like any day that we’ve had here so far. Get up early see the sites go home and go to bed. If you haven’t already see “Sant Ivo della Sapienza” in the blog roll to get the story from Sunday morning. After meeting the group at noon-ish – they had been at a market – we found an awesome pizza place and then took Kelly’s advice in trying the Rose gelato at the place by the Pantheon. I am bad with remembering the names. We then went toward St. Peter’s Basilica to try the lines for the second time. They were long, really long, but we opted to wait and actually didn’t have to wait that long. The wait was worth it of course – I got an audio guide this time around so that I could get a little more info on everything I was seeing. So many great works by great artists! Borromini designed the iron gates leading into the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament and quite possibly pieces of the Baldachin – alter of the pope.
We climbed to the cupola – not as treacherous as the one in Florence, but exciting all the same. Every surface (slightly exaggerated) in St Peters is mosaic by the way. A wonder really because until you look closely, it is difficult to tell. Getting to go into the dome of the church reveals this. The tesserae are about a 1/4 inch square – maybe 1/2 in in some places. Wouldn’t it have been a sight to see the mosaic makers working on Michelangelo’s dome! or to have been one! So high above the ground working with the tiniest of pieces creating a masterpiece of scenery. Needless to say the experience blew us all away.
We hit up the Spanish steps and Piazza del Popolo before heading home where I crashed pretty early. Getting some good sleep allowed me to wake up and and get these posted though!
May 28, 2012 in 2012
If you’ve been following my ‘Italy – Round Two!‘ blog, you may have already picked up on the fact that Borromini is one of my favorite architects and most definitely my most favorite Baroque architect. You may also have read, on our last visit to Rome, Dave and I were left very disappointed by that fact that Sant Ivo della Sapienza closes for the summer, the time in which we were visiting. S. Ivo is one of Borromini’s few works that we were not able to enjoy two years ago and for that reason, yesterday morning was a very special one for me. We were on the road, walking, by 9 am because the church only opens for three hours on Sunday mornings, no other time during the week. I realized walking that we should have left an hour early so as not to be sketching during the mass. We ended up being there all through mass though which gave me many mixed feelings. Firstly, I thought it was special to be able to be in the work of architecture during the event for which it was built. The congregation that participates at this church, however was meager to to say the least. At first I thought there would be nobody there for the mass, but a couple minutes before it started maybe seven people showed up…
I think the reason why people would choose to go elsewhere has to do with the fact that the church is catering to two sets of people at the same time – something I thought to be exceptionally unfortunate. David and I were being relatively respectful, sitting quietly, participating minimally – we began the mass participating, but as we became engrossed in our sketching, we quickly lost track of what was going on. Because the church only opens one time a week for three hours – part of which mass is going on – tourists are allowed to continue coming in to take their pictures – shuffle around – and yes, sketch. There were actually a lot of sketchers that were doing much the same as Dave and I, but noise making cameras… terribly sad and disturbing to the people that are there for mass. We left the church a little after mass was over – not before giving an offering to the priest, who laughed at us – we’ll never know why. I just wanted to help the church out… I don’t know where that money goes, but if they were able to open it up for one more day a week for tourists like me, I feel that their congregation could grow – everybody wins? (later that day we visited St. Peter’s and I got all confused again as to why the Catholic churches all over the world needed so much help from their communities when their ‘capital’ could give them any number of the thousands of art pieces and relics worth of profit and they would probably be doing fine… ) aaaand maybe I just don’t understand. Anyway, Sant Ivo was everything I hoped it would be from an architectural stand point. I did a poor job of capturing it with my hand on the exterior, which I’ll have to post at some point, but my cherub from the inside looks pretty good.
Thank you Borromini for another fantastic work of genius!
May 27, 2012 in 2012
Here is the post I wrote yesterday. We got a little busy seeing Rome so I ended up waiting to post it until today.
Today we made our way across town to the Vatican Museum. We got there by 9:50am (it opens at 10) and the line was already wrapping around several corners. Luckily, we had bought tickets with an agency that got us past the line. So walk right in we did and began the epic journey that is the miles of museum the Vatican has to offer. Apparently a Saturday at the Vatican Museum means hordes of people because the place was packed – but more on that later. This was Jenna and my second time visiting the museum and the first time for the rest of our group. I must start my summary of the visit by telling you that I find the museum staggering in both scale and beauty. I feel lucky to have had the chance to visit the museum again and found it simultaneosly inspirational and humbling. As we moved through the museum I continued to notice my fellow visitors in Rome and so I will muse on them at the end of this account. Finally, as we entered the museum I made the decision to not take any photos while in the museum. The more I travel, the less photographs I feel compelled to take. There is something too easy about it. So I stowed the camera and challenged myself to take the time to truly look at the remarkable works of art in front of me. The following are my memories of what we saw described in snippets and phrases…
12th – 14th century paintings. Halos. Golden halos displaying the worthiness of each paintings characters. These paintings were entirely symbolic, very zoomed in on individual figures. These paintings live in a flat world but are non-the-less meticulously detailed in every regard.
Raphael. The colors of Raphael are seared in my mind. Their vibrance is still astounding in their present form. While I enjoyed immensely Raphael’s room of paintings on the life of Constantine and stood for some time wondering on the great faces and knowledge represented in front of the School of Athens, it was his painting, “The Transfiguration” that left me transfixed. Here, not only the vibrance of colors, but light, shadow, and expression are used to create a painting that literally radiates, and transcends this world. The faces in this painting will haunt me – their wide eyes and extreme expressions cast in great light and shadow. Jesus and his surroundings exude holiness and otherworldliness; part heaven and part man. One other important note. As i looked at The Transfiguration painting I heard a tour guide telling this group (and you should know that I love latching on to tour guides when possible ;)) that the artists of Raphael’s time could not simply decide to paint Jesus. In fact, they needed to become religious scholars, able to understand and work within the nuances, events, and symbolism of Christianity and then bring forth those ideas into their art. I have been enjoying thinking of the Renaissance master’s in this way.
Leonardo’s painting of St. Jerome. I could stand at one point and view Raphael’s “Transfiguration” and DaVinci’s “St. Jerome” simultaneously which was really fun and heightened the contrast of the paintings. The earthly tones of Leonardo’s unfinished work. The face of St. Jerome, in agonizing detail and expression. There are so few DaVinci works to see in the world. This is only my third or fourth. Every time I see one I am struck by how his representation of his figures goes beyond describing the event to inviting me to experience the emotions of his characters.
A statue by an unknown artist of Roman antiquity. Missing both it’s arms and legs but clearly of great power by the way in which it’s muscles and figure was shaped. I heard a tour guide telling a story of how Michelangelo was asked by the Pope to complete the statue by adding arms and legs. According to the story, Michelangelo refused, stating that what was remaining of the figure was enough to tell all of the story.
The corridor of map paintings. The ceiling filled with paintings tiled in a pattern that seems to go on forever. The map paintings fascinate me. I’m drawn to their representative nature and wonderful colors, rich greens and blues with a striking amount of small medieval towns dotting the canvas. I wish I had one of these paintings as a wall in my home.
The Sistine Chapel. What Michelangelo went through to accomplish it. What endless hours I could stand there looking up. The Sistine chapel was astonishing and it leads me to my final musings for the day.
People. Fellow tourists. With as many people as there were in the Vatican Museum today, it’s impossible not to notice your fellow travelers as you move through the museum. In many parts of the museum, we were shoulder to shoulder with people. Observing other tourists led me to several questions for which i have no answer. Why is it so common for people to walk around with a camera in front of their face taking pictures of everything the walk in front of? Do they really take the time to explore them afterward? Why do so many tourists blatantly break the rules of the museum? I understand that everyone has their own way of enjoying the art but if I am being honest, I have a gross feeling throughout me as I leave the Sistine Chapel. The requests of the museum are for silence and no photos. I don’t understand why this is so hard for my fellow tourists and humans to accomplish. The experience has definitely made me think, and made viewing the Sistine Chapel less enjoyable than it might have been.
Viewing the Sistine Chapel brings me to one final musing. I am entirely blown away by the talent and dedication of these renaissance and baroque artists. Their work represents a combination of incredible skill, rich understanding, and unyielding stubbornness. Directly preceding the Sistine Chapel is a series of exhibit rooms showcasing art from the last 50 years. After standing in front of paintings by Raphael, Michelangelo, and DaVinci I have a hard time connecting to these works. I find that they do not transport me, they do not require careful hours, weeks, and years of study to perceive their details, they do not tell a story that I can pick up on. Certainly, art and its representation is bound to change with time but this direct contrast leaves me with questions.
Off to let my brain rest,
david j.
