RomanRikk: Art Overload

How can I explain what happened today; I honestly don't think it's possible. I arrived at the Vatican Museum at 11:00 this morning and spent the next six hours looking at some of the most beautiful works of art known. I'm sure you've heard of some of the artists-Giotto, Fra Angelico, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael. We spent an hour alone in the Stanza della Signatura to discuss The Disputa and The School of Athens-if you don't know them I suggest you look them up or better yet buy a book on Raphael. The experience was amazing, seeing in person these enormous paintings across from one another in the room they were painted in-they are meant to be seen in context as one refers directly to the other and both are related to the two on the other walls completing the four disciplines. I have no idea how on earth I am ever going to distill all this visual stimulation.

Here is a picture of a little church I saw while we took a break in one of the courtyards.

At the end of class our professor left us in a small room to contemplate the paintings there-the Sistine Chapel. There is more going on it that one room than in a Tolstoy novel!

Another almost mythological piece of art we saw today was the Laocoon. This sculpture was completed in the 1st century BCE and described by Pliny the elder who tells us it was originally located in the Villa of Titus. At some point it was lost-buried-and resurfaced in 1506 after being found by a gardener working at the Villa Belvedere in the Vatican City. Contemporary artists were easily able to identify the object as they had read the description by Pliny; they knew what it would look like, they knew its history as well as the names of the sculptors who made it-Agesander, Athenodoros and Polydorus. This particular piece of art changed the course of art in the Renaissance as artists tried to replicate and surpass the beauty, the dynamic tension, the emotional strength as well as the physical details of Laocoon.