As stealthy as an assassin.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

“Some people have said I am too blunt, that I criticize you too harshly.  But this is just the way I was taught.  Perhaps a few of you are not strong enough, that if I push too hard, you might break.  Well, if it comes to that, let’s see what you can do with the pieces.”

“So, Brie, would you like to show me your pieces today?  No pressure.  I can give you some suggestions, help you along.”  Dripping with sweetness and laced with a tinge of sarcasm, Simone tossed these words in my direction.

Another day in digital photography.  My six hour class has followed a path of severe undulations. 

The first day, I was charged with confidence, a complete amateur, camera in hand, its features and abilities still a mystery. 

For the following several weeks, I was swimming in a wide open space, photographs floating around me, completely lost and confused, pulling the trigger of my Canon Rebel at anything that passed me, as though I had been placed, blindfolded, into a ring of bandits and wished only to survive. 

Now, I have fine-tuned my senses, aware of the factors involved, taking advantage of light and composition and layers.  The camera is no longer alien, but an extension of my hand, its strap wrapped possessively around my wrist.  I am a conscious shooter, as stealthy as an assassin. 

Yet, in a way, I am still lost.  Each picture an attempt at perfection, that moment when my professor Simone, all Italian, kisses his fingers and swings his arm freely in the air, an exclamation of delight.  Perfection.  But they are far and few between.  And sometimes I am left in complete confusion.  Why this one?  Why this picture?  Why not the other?

The key to photography I have learned is not to take a beautiful picture.  But to take a beautiful, well-composed picture, that has your name written into every shadow and highlight.  A picture that is distinctly yours.  A picture that represents personal style and consistency. 

Every photographer is forced to throw away beautiful pictures for this sole reason.  And as a beginner, new to the game, my emotions have been stretched as thin as wire, taut, vibrating with energy.  Because something happens when you take what you know to be a beautiful photo; you get this adrenaline boost of excitement: This is it.  This is the one.  It’s perfect. 

And then, back in the lab, you come to the cold realization: it doesn’t fit.  While perfect in every way, it is not your style.  It doesn’t belong to you.  And you must rip it from your grasp, leave it, unstarred, unchosen.  It ceases to exist.  It disappears, as if it was never captured at all. 

This is why I am still the amateur, still swimming in that sea of possibilities.  How am I to devote myself to one style and leave the others behind?  How am I to commit?  My eye, lacking this severe focus, sees everything at once, and everything as good.

For class this past week, I tried to hone in my senses.  And I was rewarded with direction and approval:  the start, according to my professor Simone and his assistant Eleanor, of a great portfolio.  Here is my final collection in progress.

Mirror self-portrait.
Via Fra Giovanne Angelico, Firenze, Italia.

Morning biker at Piazza Indipendenza.
Firenze, Italia.

Vineyard at Castello Verrazzano.
Greve in Chianti, Italia.

Absent nightlife.
Firenze, Italia.

Portrait of Kait.
San Marco, Firenze, Italia.

Boot shadow.
Firenze, Italia.

Portrait of Megan.
San Marco, Firenze, Italia.

Mercato Centrale near San Lorenzo.
Firenze, Italia.

Overlooking the monastery.
San Marco, Firenze, Italia.

Dairy and parmesan cheese farm.
Parma, Italia.

The last two are of a seperate growing portfolio (according to my prof).  They lack the empty, simplicity of the above collection, but maintain a similar color palette.  They both have a central figure within a crowded environment.  I am still building on this.

"My culture = my democracy."
Protests in the streets.
November 17, 2010.
Piazza dei Ciompi, Firenze, Italia.

The carousel.
Piazza della Repubblica, Firenze, Italia.

To be a gladiator.

October 26th, 2010.

Persistence paid off.  We arrived at the Coliseum early in the morning.  English guides surrounded the ruins, claiming the wait was over two hours, and with determined voices, coaxed us in closer to consider their offer.  They advertised a guided tour coupled with “skip the line” tickets. 

What is baffling to me is the concept of “skip the line.”  Yes, the normal line is two hours long.  But one must consider that if everyone is grabbing hold of this opportunity, perhaps there is a “skip the line” line.  For the Vatican Museum, we bypassed the four hour wait, replacing it with a mere twenty-five minute delay.  But this imaginary line is the unknown.  It could be twenty-five minutes.  Or it might be one hour (which they could conveniently argue is less than two).  But still.  What exactly are you paying for?

Our tour guide was fantastic, the perfect dose of history and humor.  It was a relief to the previous day.  I found our guide for the tour of the Vatican Museum a bit dry, her desire to impart a wealth of art history drowning out the interesting facts that would keep people in tune with the sights.

When I give tours of Santa Croce in Florence, I have learned to keep them brief and simple (45 minutes brief, but still short nonetheless), including a few facts transposed over fascinating stories, stories that one might excitingly share with others beyond the walls of the basilica.  They don’t arrive at the church as tourists and leave as students of art history.  They arrive as tourists and leave the same.  My goal is that perhaps their memory of the church is both informative and postcard worthy.  A balance of both is key. 

I find though, as a student of art history, often this balance is difficult to maintain.  I am undoubtedly fascinated by art history.  It is amazing to me how visual we are, that we create beautiful, and sometimes fearsome, works to convey emotion, to express political feats, to show wealth, to preserve the past.  So this blog has become the catch-all for those instances when I found myself spouting forth facts, dates and names.  For those mundane moments of this monologue, I give you permission to skim or just skip them.  But I do try to maintain the balance, including some of my feelings and thoughts, the crazy stories, the lessons learned since I have arrived here in Florence.  Perhaps through those you will smile or nod your head in agreement (or shake your head is disagreement).  And this monologue will have transformed into a sort of dialogue, though silent. 

And when I return to the states, the set-up will be more of the same—a mixture of my educational pursuits and the intricacies of life.

I have been captured by the concept of “blogging.”  While new and slightly awkward at first, I now find that my mind is at a constant writing pace, and sometimes I fear I have too much to say and not enough time to record it all.  So now that I am also a student of conversation as well as art,  I’ll let this dialogue continue.

But I digress, again.

The Coliseum is magnificent.  Standing within its walls, I was made so much more aware of the architectural feat that it represents.  The first, the largest of its kind.  Seating over five thousand people, based on status.  And they climbed the steep steps in the middle ages, to witness marvelous feats of strength, the era of gladiators.

We romanticize this idea, the blood and gore equivalent to a symbol of power, as it was then.  And perhaps we forget that lives ended here, fathers, brothers, sons, died.  So in a way, it was sobering.  I almost expected a new age Enya song to start playing as I entered the amphitheatre, walking out of the shadows into the startling and unfettered sunlight.  In some small way, I would have preferred if the sky had been dark and grave to match the mood and purpose of the structure.  The brilliant blue in my photos contrasts so severely with the spartan Coliseum, that at times I am tempted to artificially reduce the vibrance and saturation in photoshop, and restore to the building its rightful foreboding appearance. 

Shadow of a brilliant sun.

Within the arena.

Crowded with tourists.

Almost too beautiful.

But really, a perfect end to Rome.

Jared was captivated by the Coliseum, adding his own side commentary to the tour guide’s spiel.  He admired, with sparkling eyes, the dress-up gladiator costumes.  But to his great dismay, they were sized for children.  He touched every sword and helmet at the gift shop, asking me repeatedly, “Would you be okay if I got one of these?”  To which I replied, simply, “Yes.”  But the weaponry, shields, and armor remained on the shelves.  For now, a dream still a dream.

With regret, we left Rome as simple folk, but Jared eagerly made plans to return for Gladiator school.  The Coliseum’s past is apparently,  both infective and inspiring.

We look like gladiators, I'm sure.

Rome, rain, and relics.

October 25th, 2010.

“Meet us at the fountain by the green kiosk across from the Coliseum.”

Unfortunately they failed to remember—the cityscape of Rome is littered with green kiosks and old Roman drinking fountains (part of the aqueducts).  And the Coliseum is a large circular structure.  What does one mean by “across?”  

Our tour guide for the Coliseum and Forum appeared ten minutes late.  And in response, the rain only increased, forcing us to buy five euro umbrellas from a street vendor.  Blue for Jared; green for me.

Green-- brightens up the rainiest of days.

But as we huddled together and approached the entrance of the ruins, good fortune joined the rain.  Our guide turned, a slight grimace on her face.  In softly accented English, she began to explain. 

“Unfortunately, they are having a meeting.  A meeting about having a strike.  The Coliseum and Roman Forum are closed.”

Locked out of the Coliseum.

And we were crushed, smiling slightly at the incredible timing, but truly baffled for the same reason.  Jared placed the lens of the camera through the gate, that perhaps even if we wouldn’t make it inside, at least our pictures would tell otherwise. 

Because of the unfortunate closure, we had several hours to explore on our own before the Vatican City tour that afternoon.  The sky began to clear.  We walked alongside the forum and made our way through the historical center of Rome to visit the Pantheon, getting lost in the city, the ruins and history completing surrounding us. 

The Roman Forum

After the rain.

Terracotta.

Surviving the rain.

Silhouette.

Climbing.

The Pantheon

Corinthian Column of the Pantheon

The Vatican Museum was spectacular, a maze of rooms, boasting famous frescos and marble statues.  After studying art history from a classroom, a dark room with over-exposed slides summing up the timeline of art history, I was surprised to see these pieces true to life, colors untouched, size unaltered, the pieces unobstructed. 

Statue of young Apollo 

Painted sculpture.

Tag of marble sarcophagus.

Hall of statues.

Ceiling fresco-- the power of Christ destroys a pagan statue.
(in Raphael room of the Vatican Museum)

Detail of Raphael's "School of Athens"

Laocoon and His Sons

Concerning the sculpture titled "Laocoon and His Sons."  Laocoon was preparing to reveal the deception of the Trojan Horse to his people by striking it with a spear, when Athena sent snakes to strangle him and his two sons to prevent the unveiling.  The Trojans interpreted the appearance of the snakes as an act of mystical powers and viewed the horse as an even greater sacred object.  Athena's purpose was complete, giving the Greeks access to the city and their foes.

Yet sometimes these surprises weren’t, and aren’t, always positive.  The Sistine Chapel was greatly different than my expectations.  A dark room (to preserve Michelangelo’s work) and high ceiling obscures the magnitude of these pieces.  It took me a moment to even find the “Creation of Adam,” one of the most well-known of Michelangelo’s collection.  In art history books, photographs are enlarged, lightened, details illuminated one at a time.  Yet, in the Sistine Chapel, the vast number of figures that span the ceiling and walls are overwhelming.  It is nearly impossible focus on one at a time, and as a whole, staring up so avidly at the ceiling, it is quite dizzying.  However, the “Last Judgment” scene, on the wall at the front of the chapel, is spectacular, the bright blue and white surrounding Christ contrasting with the dark recesses of Hell.

"Creation of Adam"

"The Last Judgment"- influenced by Dante's Divine Comedy.

The muscular Christ of "The Last Judgment"

(Side-note: I did not take the above pictures.)  You are not allowed to take pictures within the Sistine Chapel.  Guards stand at points around the sanctuary, reminding people, of this rule.   And a recording, in four or five languages, repeats every couple minutes to the same effect.  However, in a crowed of nearly five hundred within the chapel, people, bold and brave, blatantly raised their cameras in the air, flashes of light piercing the shadowed room.  And with the flashes, more booming voices, repeating the same words, “No pictures allowed.”  I have never seen such disrespect for authority and such disregard for the preservation of history.  The same reason for the low lighting in the room is the same reason that photos are not allowed.  Flash can slowly bleach color from frescos, destroying the works of Michelangelo for future generations.

Following our tour through the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel, we were given free time to explore St. Peter’s Basilica.  Inside the entrance on the right is Michelangelo’s first “Pieta,” depicting the crucified Christ in the arms of his mother Mary, a very young and beautiful woman.  It is said that her youth symbolizes her “incorruptible purity,” illuminating Mary as a virgin who carried the son of God.  In 1972, Laszio Toth, a geologist, attacked the sculpture with a hammer, proclaiming, “I am Jesus Christ.”  Witnesses of the assault gathered the broken pieces of marble, taking them home as free souvenirs.  And sadly, not all of these pieces were returned.  In the process of restoration, Mary’s nose had to be reconstructed from a block of marble cut from her back.  Today, the “Pieta” is protected by a wall of bulletproof glass.

Michelangelo's restored "Pieta"

Michelangelo’s second “Pieta” (commonly called the “Florentine Pieta”, but more formally referred to as the “Deposition”) is in Florence at the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo.  This piece was not commissioned; it is a personal expression of Michelangelo’s faith meant to decorate his tomb in Rome.  (However, a group of Florentines stole his body; he is currently buried in Florence, in the basilica of Santa Croce, his body housed in a tomb designed by his nephew).

In this “second Pieta”, a self-portrait of Michelangelo replaces the face of Nicodemus, the man holding the crucified body of Christ as he is retrieved from the cross.  Michelangelo never finished this sculpture.  After eight years of work, he smashed the sculpture to pieces in frustration, announcing that the marble was impure. (Michelangelo believed that he did not carve figures from the marble; instead, he freed the figures from within the marble.)  Another artist, Tiberio Calcagni, was asked to restore and finish the sculpture.  However, after he finished the female figure on the left, they prohibited him from continuing, believing that his artistic abilities, in comparison to the great Michelangelo, were destroying the piece.  The piece was better left undone, as it is today. 

The unfinished "Florentine Pieta"

The other main site in St. Peter’s Basilica is one of the few incorruptible bodies and of the most powerful relics in Italy, the body of Pope Saint Pius X.  An incorruptible body is, according to the Catholic Church, a body that is not embalmed, yet miraculously opposes the natural decay of time and does not decompose.  This incorruptibility is a sign of sainthood, a criterion for canonization (while not required).  One of the most unnerving cases of incorruptibility is St. Bernadette (1844-1879), who body, exhumed thirty years after her death, is still in excellent condition. 

Pope Saint Pius X.

St. Bernadette

We left St. Peter’s Basilica just as the sky started to gray, heavy with rain and shadowed with night.  I would argue that a trip to Rome isn’t complete without actually standing inside the Coliseum, if not for the touristic purposes of getting a single picture and leaving.  So we made plans to visit the Coliseum the next morning before our afternoon train to Napoli.

Rome, at night.

Swiss guards.

St. Peter's Basilica.

Obelisk through the gates of the St. Peter's Basilica.

Entrance to the Vatican Museum.

Vatican City columns.

Vatican City.

Inside Vatican Museum.

Metro back to the hostel.