Today was another bright and early saturday. At 9:00 A.M this morning Mrs. Everett suprised us with a quick breakfast. The doughnuts, bananas, o.j. ,chocolate milk and yummy redvines made up for her tardyness =). We quickly put on our seat belts and got ready for another virtual ride through the history of Rome. This time the seminar covered Roman art and architecture.
Rome is a huge city of surrounding art work dating back for centuries. It amazes me that the artwork we were discussing is still visable. Its shocking to be that these amazing paintings, mosaics, and frescos are so old but still standing. One peice of art that I found the most interesting was the paintings in the Sistine Chapel. Although it's all amazing to me, the most breath taking is the ceiling.
The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was painted by Michelangelo. Although he had the help of others, it was his vision that made it the amazing form of art that it was and still is today. It is 131 ft of the story of the bible told in paintings ranging from the new and old testament. The stlye of the painting is fresco, witch is painting layers of pigment on wet plaster. The entire ceiling took him 4yrs and 5months, which was shorter then what it took for other paniters to paint the walls, and they were standing straight up unlike Michelangelo, who was on his back.
Lastly, what really shocked me is what happend after Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel. Cardinal Carafa started the "fig-leaf" campaign, in which nude paintings were considerd obscene. The Cardinal demanded that the private areas of the people in the paintings be censored by fig leafs or cloth. It compltely defaced Michelangelo's work which upset him. To get back at the Cardinal, Michelangelo paints him in the scene of souls being cast down to hell. I find that gesture really amusing, its the perfect revenge. I know we didnt even cover half the amazing art work of Rome today, I'm looking forward to learning more!
-Kaneisha King
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