I haven't much felt in the mood to write as you may have noticed. I'm getting pretty mopey about leaving Florence (tomorrow morning). In fact, I probably wouldn't be writing in this at all on my last day if it weren't for the fact that I most likely won't have internet access for the last three days of the trip, which are in Rome. I'll try and be as chipper as possible in recounting the last six days however.
So, the Uffizi. In a word; incredible. The tour took 4 and a half hours, without sitting down once mind you, but it was definitely worth it. I didn't want to take a break that entire time. We began with Giotto and Cimabue's two different depictions of the Madonna Enthroned, which I'd always imagined in Art History were small enough to be held in one's hands, but were about twice my height in person. We walked through a room of Botticellis, including the famous Birth of Venus. I've always been impressed by Botticelli's unique style, but in person it really shines through. We saw many other great artist's works, too many to name here. We ended in a small room with a couple of Caravaggios and, more importantly, Gentileschi's depiction of Judith slaying Holofernes, a piece I'd been excited to see the entire trip, and one of the pieces that has moved me the most emotionally since arriving in Florence.
The next day, we went to the Medici Chapels. It housed some beautiful Reliquaries, and Michelangelo's "Dawn and Dusk" and "Day and Night". I feel like it's artistic sacrilege, but I like Michelangelo's work less and less the longer I'm here. Without the mystery and that shock the first time you see it, you realize there are better sculptors out there (at least in my opinion). I've absolutely fallen in love with the work of Giambologna, for example. But I find Michelangelo's works for a large part to be unfinished and static. At this point, I think of seeing his works as more of a bragging point ("Guess what? I saw like 50 original Michelangelos this summer") than I do artistically fulfilling. Fortunately, there's plenty of other amazing art to make up for that.
That evening, we invited David and Nadia, our program coordinators, and Steve, our professor, over to dinner. It was lots of fun, and afterwards, we went out for gelato, and me and a smaller group walked to the bronze boar. The story goes that if you rub the boar's nose, then put a coin in its fountain mouth, if the coin falls out into the grate below, you will return to Florence.
I got it on my first try.
The next day was a day trip to the seaside at Cinque Terre. It was incredibly beautiful, even if the sun was hidden all day by thick grey clouds. It didn't actually rain though, and we still were able to swim in the crystal clear water (and I mean that, I swam out to where I couldn't touch the bottom at all, probably around ten feet deep, and could see, without my glasses, straight down to the bottom with all the different rocks). David also read my palm for me, which was scarily accurate considering the only thing he knew about me before hand was that I'm a scorpio. I tried to look at the reading completely objectively, not telling him anything about me, but he asked no questions, simply stated things and was completely correct about all of them, down to the times in my life when they had happened (well, I suppose I don't know about the future stuff... yet). After upwards of 7 hours at the beach, I was exhausted, and slept for most of the three hour bus ride back.
The past two days, as well as today, have been free days, and I'm just trying to soak up the last bit of Florence. Saturday I tried to do some souvenir shopping, but gave up part way through. I'll have to pick up where I left off today. Yesterday, we had a Gelato Social at the studio, where everyone from the program brought in artwork and we watched a photo slideshow. Afterwards, Steve, two other students and I walked around Florence a bit. The student and I stopped at one point to watch some Italian street performers while Steve went back home. Because it was around 11 at night, it wasn't really prime tourist time, so the entire performance was in Italian, and I think we were the only non-Italians in the small audience which had gathered around. When we got there, the five classically costumed performers were having an argument with a man yelling out the window of his top floor apartment. With the absolutely minimal Italian I've picked up here, what I got from it was that the man wanted them to leave, and they were asking for two more minutes ("Due Minuti!"). At one point, the crowd started a cheer of "Basta!" (it means something like "enough", and has proven to be the most useful word of this entire trip) and we were more than happy to chime in. The man finally left his window, to the cheers of the audience, for what we thought was for good, and the performers continued. I was standing in the part of the audience right under the window, so had to look straight up to see the man, and in the middle of the performance, saw the other members of the audience point up at the window and start yelling in Italian. The people who understood Italian began to try to shuffle away, but to no avail, and as I looked up to see what they were pointing and screaming at, the freezing cold water from the bucket the man dumped out of his window landed right on us. It was a bonding moment between us and the Italians however, as other Italians who'd been hit expressed their sympathies and frustration to us and each other, or simply laughed with us, clapped us on the back or smiled. The audience was uproarious all over again, the performers finished their play (which did literally take only two minutes, and was made even funnier by the fact that they did it all in tiptoes and whispers as a mockery to the man yelling out of his window). There was a long round of applause, with many whistles and cheers, which I think was partially because of the good nature and performance of the actors, and partially because they were trying to rile up the man in the window some more by being as loud as possible. It was one of the more entertaining nights in Italy by far.
Sorry, no pictures for this one.
Today, I write my most likely last blog entry in Italy, pack up my things, finish up my shopping, and wander Florence for the last time. It'll for sure be a sad day, but I am incredibly appreciative of this opportunity.
Arrivederci, Firenze. And I say "arrivederci" because I know we will see each other again someday.
No comments:
Post a Comment