Michelangelo's Madonna and Galileo's telescope
(Originally written offline on May 26 at 6:09pm Italy time, in Florence)
This afternoon my mom and I went to the Galleria degli Uffizi, one of the major art galleries in Florence, featuring paintings and sculpture from about the fourteenth century up through maybe the eighteenth, including works by Rafael, Botticelli, da Vinci, and Michelangelo.
The progression through the centuries is interesting. The early works are all religious, and are usually figures on a gold background—no earth or sky. The figures are flat, with little form or life, and the skin is often pale and sickly-looking. The figures of Madonna and Christ child show Jesus as a baby but with a wise, aged face, holding up his hand in blessing. With the Renaissance, backgrounds are introduced; we see hills, trees, sky. The figures gain form—one Madonna was noted as the first to show evidence of her knees and breasts underneath the heavy folds of her robes, causing quite a scandal—and color returns to their cheeks. The baby Jesuses you see in the Madonnas look and act more like babies. In Michelangelo's Madonna, which is strikingly colorful, Mary is not a soft figure, but has firm muscles (I've heard that Michelangelo used male models even for his female figures), and the Christ child is not sitting peacefully, but is restless and is seems to be trying to climb onto her shoulders. In addition, non-religious subjects are introduced as the centuries progress. Some are references to Greek mythology; some are portraits; some are figures with no apparent reference, standing on their own.
I preferred the sculpture to the paintings; I liked the many portrait busts as well as the full figures. I liked seeing Michaelangelo's Madonna and I enjoyed some of the portrait paintings, but I have to admit that most of the paintings don't do much for me, even Boticelli's Birth of Venus or da Vinci's Enunciation, two of the most famous works in the gallery.
After the Uffizi Mom and I joined my dad and brother for the Institute and Musem of the History of Science, which is right around the corner. The museum houses instruments, tools, inventions, charts, etc., some dating back several centuries (there was even an astrolabe from I think 1085). Some of the highlights, for me: one of the first mechanical calculators, built in the seventeenth century (!) and dedicated to the Grand Duke Cosimo III (!!); many early microscopes; an enormous "universal machine of the world," constructed in the sixteenth century by Antonio Santucci for Ferdinando I de' Medici, which simulates the motions of the stars predicted by the Ptolemaic system; early thermometers and barometers; some very large telescopes made mostly of wood, with apparatus for positioning them precisely; various machines for collecting static electricity, some of them several feet tall; early electric motors and vacuum chambers; lifesize wax models of pregnancy and complications thereof for the instruction of surgeons and midwives; and—my personal favorite—two telescopes made and used by Galileo in the early seventeenth century, and the lens he used to discover the moons of Jupiter in January 1610 (placed in an ornate ivory frame in 1677, many years after Galileo's death).
After basically five straight hours of museums, we were ready to go back to the hotel and rest before dinner; we managed to hop a bus that was going in the right direction. It was an experience that seems typical of Italy: we got on the bus without buying tickets; the bus driver told us how much the fare was, but there was nowhere for us to put the money, although there was some sort of ticket-punching machine on board; some people on the bus told us that it didn't matter and the driver was letting us ride for free this time, although we should buy some tickets later at a tobacco shop for future use; the driver didn't ask for our money as we were getting off and probably would have let us get off without paying; but we gave him the money anyway and he took it, perhaps just pocketing it. Italian traffic in general seems equally well-organized.
Whoops, the cab's here to take us to dinner. Will write more (and post all of this!) later....
This afternoon my mom and I went to the Galleria degli Uffizi, one of the major art galleries in Florence, featuring paintings and sculpture from about the fourteenth century up through maybe the eighteenth, including works by Rafael, Botticelli, da Vinci, and Michelangelo.
The progression through the centuries is interesting. The early works are all religious, and are usually figures on a gold background—no earth or sky. The figures are flat, with little form or life, and the skin is often pale and sickly-looking. The figures of Madonna and Christ child show Jesus as a baby but with a wise, aged face, holding up his hand in blessing. With the Renaissance, backgrounds are introduced; we see hills, trees, sky. The figures gain form—one Madonna was noted as the first to show evidence of her knees and breasts underneath the heavy folds of her robes, causing quite a scandal—and color returns to their cheeks. The baby Jesuses you see in the Madonnas look and act more like babies. In Michelangelo's Madonna, which is strikingly colorful, Mary is not a soft figure, but has firm muscles (I've heard that Michelangelo used male models even for his female figures), and the Christ child is not sitting peacefully, but is restless and is seems to be trying to climb onto her shoulders. In addition, non-religious subjects are introduced as the centuries progress. Some are references to Greek mythology; some are portraits; some are figures with no apparent reference, standing on their own.
I preferred the sculpture to the paintings; I liked the many portrait busts as well as the full figures. I liked seeing Michaelangelo's Madonna and I enjoyed some of the portrait paintings, but I have to admit that most of the paintings don't do much for me, even Boticelli's Birth of Venus or da Vinci's Enunciation, two of the most famous works in the gallery.
After the Uffizi Mom and I joined my dad and brother for the Institute and Musem of the History of Science, which is right around the corner. The museum houses instruments, tools, inventions, charts, etc., some dating back several centuries (there was even an astrolabe from I think 1085). Some of the highlights, for me: one of the first mechanical calculators, built in the seventeenth century (!) and dedicated to the Grand Duke Cosimo III (!!); many early microscopes; an enormous "universal machine of the world," constructed in the sixteenth century by Antonio Santucci for Ferdinando I de' Medici, which simulates the motions of the stars predicted by the Ptolemaic system; early thermometers and barometers; some very large telescopes made mostly of wood, with apparatus for positioning them precisely; various machines for collecting static electricity, some of them several feet tall; early electric motors and vacuum chambers; lifesize wax models of pregnancy and complications thereof for the instruction of surgeons and midwives; and—my personal favorite—two telescopes made and used by Galileo in the early seventeenth century, and the lens he used to discover the moons of Jupiter in January 1610 (placed in an ornate ivory frame in 1677, many years after Galileo's death).
After basically five straight hours of museums, we were ready to go back to the hotel and rest before dinner; we managed to hop a bus that was going in the right direction. It was an experience that seems typical of Italy: we got on the bus without buying tickets; the bus driver told us how much the fare was, but there was nowhere for us to put the money, although there was some sort of ticket-punching machine on board; some people on the bus told us that it didn't matter and the driver was letting us ride for free this time, although we should buy some tickets later at a tobacco shop for future use; the driver didn't ask for our money as we were getting off and probably would have let us get off without paying; but we gave him the money anyway and he took it, perhaps just pocketing it. Italian traffic in general seems equally well-organized.
Whoops, the cab's here to take us to dinner. Will write more (and post all of this!) later....
posted by Jason Crawford at 9:55 AM
1 Comments:
Godo seguire questo “blog„. Quando vedo le fotografie belle, la mia mascella cade. Quando leggo il testo, alzo la mia mascella per sorridere.
Matteo V. (con assistenza da Google)
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