9/26 Thursday
Today: The Uffizi! We gird our loins
and brace ourselves for the crowds. No hitting or kicking, we mantra. But it’s
really not too extreme, once we get inside. Much like the Vatican, the place is
gigantic and easily swallows up the throngs.
Walking the galleries is taking a
course in the history of Italian Art. It’s truly fun to see so many famous
works that one usually experiences in a book of reproductions. It seems wrong
to consider it any kind of education or understanding of a work until you can
actually see it, which, of course, renders most art education impossible.
Still, seeing the art is an irreproducible experience, one that we fully
exploit at the Uffizi.
There are rooms full of Medieval
art, luminous and delicate altarpieces by Giotto. The Battle of San Romano by
Paolo Uccello, has always been a favorite of mine. Seeing it today makes me
think of Kandinsky. One of the highlights of the museum is the Botticelli room,
with the iconic Birth of Venus and Primavera. Again, it’s strikingly
different from the reproductions. The paintings are very large, filling the
walls, and so light and delicate. The palate is much more muted than you
expect, almost translucent. The museum’s own brochures show them with bright
blue and green tones, not accurate at all.
We see Da Vinci, Michelangelo,
Caravaggio, and thousands of Madonnas. The building and halls are also richly
decorated and filled with portraits and statues. The exhibition rooms go on and
on, and like at the Vatican, it’s overwhelming in a good way.
1 Video Included
Florence Uffizi Gallery
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