Florence - Accademia, or, Wow, David's big.
Trip Start
May 16, 2006
1
18
33
Trip End
Jun 13, 2006
Florence,
Italy
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
The wind is still a little cold, so I was glad of the overpriced voucher that let us go right inside. Several of the rooms were rather run of the mill Italian paintings from the 14th-18th centuries, but there were six rooms and/or items that contained something interesting that I liked. The first being, of course, the Music Room. This contained several really old instruments as well as computers that you could listen to the sound of each instrument on. The serpent was cool, as was the trumpet-lute thing. I can't remember the real name of it, but it was a stringed instrument that sounded remarkably like a trumpet. I think it only had one string.
The second notable area was the walk of unfinished sculptures leading up to the David. It gave the weird impression that David was the only one who'd manage to burst from the marble unscathed, and the rest of them remained half-trapped and died. I felt sorry for them every time I walked through.
Thirdly was David. He got a whole viewing area to himself, because he is enormous! I was expecting something similar to the Roman marble statues or to the David replicas...nope. Instead of the usual 7-10 feet tall, he was at least 15, plus a huge marble base, easily 5 feet. Almost everybody around was noticing the same things - the veins and musculature were just so real. I got dizzy every time I tried staring because it seemed like he moved. The guide-book helpfully pointed out that his hands and arms were too big and he was wall-eyed because Michelangelo was doing a perspective trick. We saw the wall-eyed thing, and his hands were enormous, but we didn't see that his arms were disproportionate. One of the only unrealistic things about him was his hair - I guess it's just impossible to sculpt good hair in marble.
The room off to the left of David was one of my favorites, and I wish I could have gotten a closer look at some of the statues. It was a room of plaster statues, which, due to the nature of plaster, were crumbling and had to be pinned back together. Even with the gruesome pins, they were still more realistic as a whole than most of the sculptors' marble statues. The children were simultaneously adorable and heart-breaking, because several had been created to serve as tombstones. I don't know why painters had such a hard time with children and sculptors got it so much better. My favorite was a piece called Sibling Rivalry. I also found it interesting than in every sculpture/painting of Charity with the two children, it was the girl learning to read and the boy being cuddled. That seems to go against what we think of as "traditional" gender roles.
There was one statue in an otherwise pretty ordinary painting gallery that I found interesting for one main reason - the creator, Giambologna, had only intended it to be a figure study balancing three different figures in a spiral arrangement. A later fellow, Borghini, was the one that determined that it should be called the Rape of the Sabine (Women), giving it a decidedly darker tone than it originally had. Don't get me wrong, it was never exactly a happy sculpture, but it was made more gruesome by just the added name.
The last set of items I saw on the way out was more work by Lorenzo Monaco. His paintings and triptychs were kind of boring and reminded me of a dull and lifeless version of Edward Gorey, but in the last room they had a set of illuminations he'd done in old hymnals. These books were at least two feet high and six inches thick, with a capital letter often six or eight inches tall. In miniature form, Monaco's work is gorgeous, because you can't tell how lifeless they are, since capital letters aren't supposed to look all that life-like, anyhow.
After the Gallery, I futzed around on the internet while Sarah napped and got us reservations for another night in Florence. There's still stuff to see, plus, Assisi is really out of the way. So I guess we're not seeing Assisi this time.
When she got up, we went shopping, first in the New Market area, then in the Old Market. I finished up my souvenir shopping and she got a beautiful lambskin jacket. Some day when I'm rich, I think I'm going to get one of the leather suitcase-bags.
We ate at this little cafe where we were the only people under about 50 for pretty much the whole time, then stopped in here, to the internet, where I am now caught up for the first time in over a week. Off to go get some more pictures up. Today, I've added pictures to the Riomaggiore, Rome 1, Pisa, and Rome 2 sets from Sarah's camera, and I'm going to try and get a start on Rome 3 and 4 and Lake Como.
ETA: Pisa is now up, as are Sarah pictures from Rome through Pisa.
