Wow! We are in the city often considered to be the cradle of the Renaissance. The city with the cathedral dome that graces half of the advertisements for European travel. And in yet another demonstration of her genius at organizing our world tour, Sarah has rented us an apartment where our living room window literally looks out at that dome created by Brunelleschi! And is next to a Mexican restaurant (yes, we are in Italy and still want nachos). However, just to prove that not everything is perfect, we do have to use a laundromat because the apartment does not have a washer.
Studying art and music history, and now teaching music and art history, means taking a lot of tests on art works, and giving a lot of tests on art works. And an almost unbelievable number of those works are here in Florence. Between the Uffizi Gallery and the Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze, I was in total heaven spending time with favorite works of art. In fact, thanks to Sarah’s generosity of time and money, I was able to spend two days at the Uffizi and take photos and buy prints to update my classes and to just take in my favorites. On one morning I even got in at the beginning of the day, and by racing to the back of the museum, I was able to spend time with some favorites while there were almost no people around me. And I actually even had a few rooms totally to myself!
So much of our experiences in Florence involved connections specific works of art and since this is not a textbook, nor do I think any of you want to read too much of the inner workings of my weird brain, I am going to show you some of the works we saw and encourage you to go the Uffizi Online as I think it is an amazing site and their dedication to education is wonderful. It is a site to which I often direct my students, and Tommy, to visit when needing visual resources.
Tommy has not asked to see a lot on this trip, but he really wanted to see Michelangelo’s David. Since David is right here, we were able to make that happen! And it was so wonderful to see him truly work to take it all in. As folks were cramming in to get a selfie, make crude comments, or just check off a box of “done that”, Tommy walked around it, sat for a while, and read everything he could.
As I said at the start of this blog, the dome of the cathedral in Florence (Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore) is itself an amazing piece of engineering by Brunelleschi. But almost as important to me, is the bell tower which was designed by none other than Giotto! And since we will later be moving to Padova (hopefully for some serious quiet time and catching up on schoolwork), you will certainly hear more from me about Giotto who is my all-time favorite Medieval to Renaissance visual artist, and maybe one of my top ten favorites overall. Further, the cathedral is also famous because of the Ghiberti Gates of Paradise. These are the giant brass doors to the baptistry that depict Old Testament scenes. In many ways the cathedral complex could be an entire exam on Renaissance art and architecture. And every morning we get to see it from our living room!
One of the reasons I love teaching introductory music history, and being a member of the Honors College, is that I get to teach classes that have a flexible curriculum. In these classes that don’t prepare students for state or professional assessments, the class can develop organically and when that happens, I often find certain pieces of music or visual art works keep coming back again and again. This often leads to students making deep connections, and for me as the professor I start to associate certain musical or visual works with the specific group of students that were attracted to that work.
Last year, one of my Honors classes kept going back to the 17th century artist Artemisia Gentileschi. Specifically, they were taken with the depiction of Judith Slaying Holofernes. They seemed to be taken by the fact Gentileschi was a woman in a male world, that the Judith painting clearly displays many of the critical terms used to describe visual arts, that the story of Judith is powerful, and maybe even the fact that Gentileschi is now something of a feminist icon for her resilience (she was raped as a young girl by another painter, her “friend” would not help her, and when she pressed charges she was tortured while given testimony, and while the man was convicted he used his clout to get out of punishment). Anyway, when I found myself alone in the room with this painting, I could not help but think of both the power of the painting, as well as that great group of students I associate with this work.
The Uffizi is also home to a series of rooms with portraits of the great artists. Included here is another female painter who is on my list of all-time favorites, and who is included all the time in my lectures: Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun. Her portrait is actually a self-portrait of her painting a self-portrait. I have always found it to be a good example of her powerful skills as a painter, but once I viewed it up close (I was able to see it all alone in the room) I was even more impressed. I especially love the details of the lace she is wearing and the self-portrait she is painting in the painting (it is easier to see in real life)! And, compared to the previously mentioned Judith, this painting is far less emotionally draining!
And how could not show you Raimondo Zaballi’s self portrait while painting his cat!
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