Vittorio Emanuele II Monument
It
has been a little hard getting used to Rome. I’m not
used to such a big city or so many roommates. The bus
system can be a bit confusing, but we haven’t been
completely lost yet. I think going to classes and
getting into a routine will help me adjust to being
here.
Yesterday, we went downtown for the whole day. We started out at Porta Portese which is a huge market, with mainly clothes, that goes on every Sunday. After that, we walked across the Tiber River and ended up at the Vittoriano. We walked up an incredible number of steps on the back of it to get to look over the city. At the top we also went through a little wood door and ended up in a huge church which we couldn’t find the name of- more research will be necessary...We then wandered over to the Coliseum, the Arch of Constantine, and the Column of Trajan. It was just the afternoon I had been hoping for!
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Settling In
February 1, 2009
Trevi Fountain
On
Friday, I went with another group back to St.
Peter’s (after meeting them late because of a
traffic accident involving a moped and a car)
where we went to a photography store, got some
lunch from a street vendor, and FINALLY had some
gelato! On our way across the river to
see the Spanish Steps we came across a huge
group a school kids who were all paying
attention to an older man who was surrounded by
bodyguards and a t.v. crew. All the kids were
chanting what we assumed was his name (although
we couldn’t make it out) and it made us wonder
what we were missing. We never did find out who
he was…
So we continued across the river and through the main, pricey shopping street, called Via Dei Condotti, and climbed the famous "Spanish" Steps for a view of the square. After consulting a map, we decided to go to the Trevi Fountain while we were out. It's tradition to throw a coin in the fountain for luck in returning to the city in the future, so it was packed with tourists, rose-sellers, photographers, and the like.
Friday night, a bunch of us AUR students went to an Irish pub here in Rome where lots of English speaking locals and tourists like to frequent. It was packed (as I am told is the usual) and only cleared out a bit after a Coldplay cover-band got done playing.
As for the rest of this weekend, I got more used to my neighborhood and the student lifestyle by walking to get groceries for the week and then reading, writing, and studying for my classes. I had trouble finding a bus to school today to get to the library, but I think it was because it was a Sunday and so the buses must make fewer (or different) stops. I did, however, get to practice my Italian asking how to get a bus to my usual stop, unfortunately no one knew… (or at least no one I asked did). The language barrier might have been a factor too. Oh well, I’ll just have to go to the university a little earlier tomorrow.
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Hurray for “Site Visits”
February 8, 2009
For my Arts of Modernity class we went to the Galleria Borghese to see two Bernini statues and Canova’s statue of Pauline Bonaparte. We then went across the Borghese grounds (past a zoo and several other beautiful buildings) to the National Museum of Modern Art to see Canova’s statue of Hercules. At the end of the day we wrote on the differences between the Baroque and Neoclassical styles as we saw with the two artists we focused on. I’m still in awe of our ability to go see these great works of art so easily.
Hendrickje at an Open Door
Today
(Sunday) was so beautiful outside (after days of
rain), so we decided to venture out into the
city. Another girl and I had been wanting to go
to a traveling exhibit at the Fondazione
Roma Museo called “From Rembrandt to
Vermeer” and today we finally were able to go!
The exhibit had a range of works from the
Northern Renaissance which were all wonderful.
We were able to get much closer to them than we
would have been able to at any museum in the
States. I loved all the portraits in the
exhibit, but my favorite had to be Rembrandt’s
Hendrickje at an Open Door (which it
the picture to the side of this post- but the
colors were so much more vivid in person).
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Carnivale Weekend
February 15, 2009
Carnivale Masks
This
weekend, I met a few friends (new and old) in
Venice for Carnivale. The Carnivale season
starts two weeks before Lent and is a huge
city-wide party (especially on the weekends). I
left my place in Rome very early Friday morning
and was in Venice by 9:00 am. After checking
into the hostel I walked around Venice with an
Australian woman and a British girl about my age
while I waited for the friends from Florence to
arrive.
The first afternoon, we wandered down to Piazza St. Marco and were able to go into the Basilica for free. As we were exiting we saw our first Carnivale-dressed people. There were three people dressed in extravagant, aqua and white costumes, masks, and wigs. They were even pushing their little white dog in a aqua-colored old-fashioned baby carriage as they slowly walked across the square as everyone took pictures. As we walked around by the waterfront and looked for a place to see a show, we saw a few more people in complete costumes which were all really neat. After dinner we found a relatively inexpensive concert of Vivaldi (and other composers and operas) that was actually really good. Then we got a lot of great of “exploring” done as we tried to find our way back to the hostel.
The next day, we went back to Piazza St. Marco for lunch and saw some Carnivale festivities starting up. Our favorite was a line of about ten men with tall, multi-colored, pinata-palmtree-like hats, white jumpsuits, and big bells on their backs that clanked together as they jogged. I think they were from the “sound” section of Venice (each of the six regions were dedicated to senses- our area was “taste”). We then went to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum which is a great private collection of modern art near the Ponte Accademia (the oldest bridge in Venice). We then went back to rest up for the evening. Before we went out, our hostel host made us a wonderful dinner (Mozzarella, Tomatoes, Risotto, yumm). Unfortunately by the time we were done with dinner, meeting up with the rest of our group for the night, and walking all the way to St. Marco’s- everything was over! So we just rambled back towards our hostel but met some fun girls from England on the way. Even though we missed a lot of stuff this weekend, we still had so much fun exploring Venice on our own.
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Futurismo
February 22, 2009
This
weekend was the 100th anniversary of the start
of the Futurist movement in Italy. To celebrate
there have been gallery exhibits, concerts, and
“happenings” of all sorts. On Friday, I took some
friends who are studying in Florence to see some
of these events around Rome (in addition to
showing them the usual tourist must-sees). The
first one we stopped at was giant, projections
of the silhouettes of mostly human figures that
were all a bit surreal and continually changing
into other images. These projections and the
music that went along with them set the scene
for play that we saw there later in the night.
In the mean time, we went to Piazza del
Popolo to see an incredible and
other-worldly light show ( with lots of
artificial fog to catch the light) which was set
to tribal-ish music that together was nearly
overwhelming to all the senses. Between the two
halves of the show a reading of the Futurist
Manifesto was played (in its original Italian of
course) over the loud speakers. I was glad I had
read the manifesto in my art history book last
year so I could follow along and really feel
like a part of the enormity of the event. After
the show, we walked back toward Piazza
Venezia (where there had also been a light
show) and saw a man repelling down a ten story
building while making a huge painting of what
seemed to be Italian futurist, Umberto
Boccioni’s, Unique Forms of Continuity in
Space. The whole evening was incredibly
impressive and defiantly a once in a lifetime
experience.---------------------------------------------------------------
Florence
March 1, 2009
This
weekend, I went to Florence to visit a friend
from Truman and see the city again. We couldn’t
have hoped for nice weather this weekend- it was
so beautiful outside! After I arrived Friday
afternoon at Santa Maria Novella, (having taken
my first train trip ever) we wandered around
with no particular destination. We first went to
a neat market that seemed to be in an old train
station that filled two levels with fruit,
bread, and meat stands. From there we went back
outside through a street market with clothes,
etc., on our way to see the Duomo- it was just
as incredible as I remembered! Next we wound our
way back towards meeting her friends to go to
the Uffizi and got Indian food on the way. But,
by the time we got to the Uffizi it was getting
late in the day and the line was long so we
decided to save the museum for the next day.
Instead we walked down to the Arno River and
then up to Piazza Michelangelo to get a
great panorama over the city. After enjoying the
view, we went back to have a little seven person
fiesta with “Mexican” food, etc. and
then we went out to a karaoke bar.
On Saturday, we braved the line at the Uffizi and I am so glad we did! Walking in to the museum was like walking into the Renaissance chapter of my art history text book. Possibly my favorite thing in the museum was the hallways between galleries. The top of the walls were lined with hundreds portraits of members of the Medici family. It was interesting to see family traits getting passed on and styles changing over the generations. The museum also has work by Botticelli, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Caravaggio- basically all the Italian Renaissance masters. I also enjoyed the Northern Renaissance work which (combined with my enjoyment of the “Rembrandt to Vermeer” exhibit a few weeks ago) makes me think the Northern Renaissance will probably have to become a research topic for me soon. After the Uffizi we got panini and went back to Piazza Michelangelo to enjoy the weather and view. After spending a few hours there we decided to go out for dinner at a place called ZaZa which had been recommended to us. All seven of us ended up with different meals and (amazingly) everyone was happy with what they got- I had fettuccine with truffle sauce (yum).
It was such a different experience to be in Florence for the second time and not being so rushed or only going to tourist sites. It was nice not to feel like I had to see X, Y, and Z and instead just enjoying being with friends and getting a feel for the “real” city. But did I mention that the Uffizi was amazing?!
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Rediscovering Rome
March 15, 2009
View from the Dome of St. Peter's
This
week I got to play tour guide for a
friend from home which was a nice review
of the main sites and even led to
explorations of a few new places. His
plane arrived on Sunday morning and I
was able to meet him in the
international arrivals area at Rome-
Fumincino (FCO). From there we took a
train and then a bus back to my
apartment so he could see where I am
living this semester. In the afternoon
we took a cab (my first in Rome) to his
hotel which was north of the Vatican. In
the evening we went out to get pizza and
found a place right near Piazza
Rotunda and so were able to eat on
the steps just across the Pantheon. It
was very surreal to be with someone from
home eating
pizza in Rome just across from one of
the worlds finest buildings.Monday through Wednesday were my midterms, so my friend explored on his own during the day and we met up for lunch and in the evenings. Going with him to a little, kid’s arcade on the Janiculum Hill between exams was a really nice break!
Finally done with midterms, on Thursday we went to the Vatican. We started with the Vatican Museums (Sistine Chapel, Lacoon, School of Athens, etc) where one could spend a lifetime and still not really see everything. Then we walked around to St. Peter’s Basillica to go inside. After getting a feel for ground-level we climbed up to the top of the interior where we could look over the altar and see the mosaics up close and then climbed the rest of the way up dome to look out over the city. That was a first for me too! We could just make out the shape of the Coliseum from there.
We dedicated Friday to the Borghese Gardens. I had been wanting to go to the zoo there since I saw the outside of it a few weeks ago and it wasn’t hard to talk my friend into going there too. The zoo is smaller than the St. Louis zoo which was actually a good thing because we could spend more time watching the animals and less time walking around. We spent the most time at the monkey area where a complex drama of war and thievery was taking place at meal time. After the zoo we went to Villa Borghese so I could show my friend the great sculptures and the impressive building too. We were both amazed with Bernini’s sculptures’ details.
Saturday, we went to see the Coliseum and the Imperial Forum- two things you can’t really go to Rome without seeing. The interior of the Coliseum was about like I had remembered it from three years ago, but it is still pretty amazing. As for the Forum area, last time we didn’t go through as much of it and so seeing the area where Agustus used to have his villa was exciting. Most of it has been covered with earth and then grass so it looked like a sort of revised Garden of Eden with the greenery and people lounging with the ruins. That evening I went with my friend to buy a pocket-watch that he had been thinking about all week after seeing it the second day. Then after that we went back to the Trevi Fountain (he had already explored the sites off the Via del Corso while I had been in classes) and threw in our euro cents. Then it was time for gelato and dinner- in that order!
After a great week, my friend left this morning to get back to school on Monday. Just over eight more weeks until I make that same trek back to the States. But thinking of school, I am very glad that my own spring break has just started and I don’t have to worry about school things too much for another week!
---------------------------------
Journey to the North
March 22, 2009
A quick transportation summary (just because it is an impressively long list for only having visited three cities): Rome public bus to Termini Station, Terra Vision bus to Ciampino Airport, Ryan Air flight to Liverpool, Easy Jet flight to Amsterdam, Amsterdam train to city center, Amsterdam public bus to the museum district, Amsterdam train back to Amsterdam airport, Easy jet flight to London (Stanstead airport), National Express Bus to Oxford, a taxi and a bus in Oxford, Oxford Express bus to London, London underground lots, Easy Bus to London Gatwick airport, British Airways flight back to Rome, train back from the airport, bus back to my apartment (and lots of walking in between)… phew!
As for actually enjoying my time away, I’m going to have to stick to the highlights because it would require pages of space and hours of time to get all of my experiences down. (And as always, the rest of my pictures are in the “pictures” section.)
Amsterdam highlights:
Rijksmuseum entrance
-Rijksmuseum
(Mostly works from the Northern
Renaissance)
-Van Gogh Museum (Extensive collection in mostly chronological order)
- Walking by the canals at night
- Soccer riot (Amsterdam v. Marseilles)
Oxford highlights:
Front of Christ Church
- Christ Church college (amazing architecture and grounds)
- Climbing to the top of St. Mary’s
- Going to the Eagle and Child pub (haunt of JRR Tolken and CS Lewis
- Celebrating a friend of a friend’s birthday at St. Hugh's.
London highlights:
Big Ben
-
Going to Buckingham Palace
- Going to the Globe Theater
- Climbing to the top of St. Paul’s cathedral (I sure do climb a lot of churches…)
- Going in the massive London Harrod’s department store
- Going to the Tate Modern, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, and the British Museum (all were overwhelmingly awesome and gave me ideas for future research projects!)
- Going to King Cross Station and seeing Platform 9 and 3/4 (like in the Harry Potter books)
- Using a transportation system that actually works (seriously, Rome has nothing on London in that department)
-------------------------------------------------
AUR Semester, Part II
March 29, 2009
Galleria Natzionale di Arte Antica
This
week was the start to the second half of
my semester at AUR. If this first week
is any indication of the weeks to come,
I am going to have it easy- all but two
of my classes were canceled! I do have
three major papers due before May 12, so
I have a feeling my working pace won’t
be too similar to this first week back.
I did have a “weekend” class on Friday
though. My Management of Cultural
Heritage class met at the Cappuccini
Monk Bone Chapel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Maria_della_Concezione_dei_Cappuccini)
for an example of a “living museum”. It
is sort of ironic that a chapel of
skeletons is a “living museum” but that
term just refers to the fact that it is
still being used for its original
purpose and additions are still being
made too.Today, I went to the Galleria Natzionale di Arte Antica with my roommate to find a painting she needed to study for class. Unfortunately the painting was on temporary loan to a museum in Milan, but we had fun anyway. Before going in to the museum we wandered around the grounds (which I’m not sure were open to the public, but no one chased us off). The Palazzo Barberini belonged to the family of a pope so it was really nice and had bee designs (the symbol of the family) worked into everything. The collection had a few Caravaggios and Rafaels that stood out, but the architecture was really the most interesting part. Afterwards we stopped at a shop on Piazza Venizia for Creme Brulee- yum!
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Pompeii
April 5, 2009
Monday evening, AUR played host to the Black Maria film festival. This traveling festival has been going on for 28 years and gets its name from Thomas Edison’s motion picture studio. The short films were done mostly by Americans and ranged from documentaries to the more abstract. My favorite, and I think the crowd favorite, was Yours Truly by Osbert Parker. The film used video and still photography from old detective movies and put them together to tell a new story. The look of the film is really interesting too. You can watch some of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HRGfEDM5io
Mount Vesuvius
Now
for Pompeii:
We left from the university at 7am and got to Pompeii around 10:30am. The University arranged for us to have a guided tour of the site, so we met with our tour guide (a man who is actually from Pompeii) and walked into the site. We started at a spot were we could see solidified lava from before the famous 79A.D. eruption and the guide explained why the Greeks had originally picked the site (7th century BC) as a colony and then why the Roman chose Pompeii (4th century BC) for their own colony. Pompeii is surrounded on all sides by either ocean or mountains so it was safe from invasion, but it had a river so it was good for trade. Unfortunately for the people in Pompeii on August 24, 79, the mountain that protected them was really a volcano which let off enough fumes to kill anyone who did not escape and then enough ash and pumice to preserve their city until it was found in 1748.
On our tour we walked through the old streets of the city looking at the remains of shops and houses. The guide pointed out the worn away stones on the street from iron wheels of chariots and the tracks sliding doors had made in the stone around doorways. When we walked into the first really well preserved house we had been shown, it reminded me of all the research I had done for an art history paper on the societal functions of the atrium of houses in ancient Rome. Many of the sources I had read referenced houses at Pompeii because of their level of preservation, so I imagine at some point I probably read about that very house we were touring. Seeing the benches outside of the house I could imagine the client of the paterfamila waiting to perform the daily ritual of the salutatio to say hello and pledge their allegiance- for bread or money of course. We also got a chance to see the casts made from pouring plaster into the spaces left by decomposed bodies (including those of animals) which showed their final positions- very strange and a little disturbing. We then saw the remains of a few temples and a bath house which was also really well preserved. Like I mentioned, I had read about Pompeii before but nothing com pairs to actually seeing it in person!
----------------------------------------------------
Easter in Rome
April 13, 2009
In the morning I checked the news online first thing and read that the earthquake was a 6.3 and that many people had been forced to leave their homes and some were even killed. The American news headlines made it sound as if the earthquake was in Rome, so I sent out an email before heading to school. Everyone was talking on the bus about the earthquake which was strange on its own because the morning bus is normally pretty silent. From what I could understand the older people were comparing it to previous earthquakes and everyone was relieved that it was not any closer to Rome. The rest of the week the number of dead grew to almost 300 and we felt several aftershocks as late as Thursday. There was relief funds being raised and donations being collected almost immediately. This was the most interesting article I came across about the Italian response: Heroes and Old Trucks- The Two Italys. Flags were still at half-mast into the Easter weekend.
Easter at the Vatican
Friday,
two friends from Florence came down to
see Rome again. We had lunch and then
headed towards the Villa Borghese. On
the way we stopped in Piazza del Popolo
because I remembered being told there
were Caravaggio-s in one of the churches
so we went in to investigate. Sure
enough! On the left side of the altar
there were two larger-than-life
paintings by Caravaggio of biblical
scenes including the crucifixion of St.
Peter. There were also Bernini
sculptures in another side chapel and
the central dome was decorated in
mosaics by Raphael. After being
thoroughly impressed, we continued on
and decided to go to the Galleria
Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (my personal
favorite). I had been with my modern art
class several times, but going with
friends we were able to go at our own
pace and see everything- and for free
because we are all students of art or
art history! In the evening I went down
to the Coliseum to see the Stations of
the Cross being performed and being
presided over by the Pope himself.
Saturday, I met up with my friends and another friend of theirs from Rome for dinner after they had spent the day lost and having found out everything was closed or sold out. We had fantastic Thai food that was preceded by free french fries and followed by a bowl of free candy- strange but not bad! After dinner we went back to the apartment of the other girl studying in Rome to watch a movie and rest up for the next day’s adventures.
Sunday morning, we all went to the Vatican and stopped for “la colomba” (a traditional Easter dove-shaped cake) on the way . That cake came with us all day and even passed through the Vatican x-ray machine. We missed the actual mass, but got in the long line to get into the basilica anyway. The only difference inside St. Peter’s was the flowers around the altar that looked insignificant compared to the usual “decorations”. After St. Peter’s we went to Trastevere for lunch and then to walk around the sprawling Pamphilj gardens. There were lots of families out, kids chasing ducks, and nice Easter-y things like that.
There was no school today because of “Pasquetta” (little Easter), so inspired by our afternoon at the park, we went to Galleria Doria Pamphilj. The Gallery is in the Palazzo of the Pamphilj family (the family of Pope Innocent X) which is decorated as it would have been in the 17th century. Seeing the rooms as they would have been then was the most impressive to me, but the art (such as Velazquez’s famous portrait of Innocent X) was pretty impressive too.
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Florence, Part II
April 19, 2009
Inside Florence Cathedral
Early
in the week, I went to EUR (for
the first time) with my modern
architecture class. Originally
called E 42, EUR was meant to be
the site of the 1942 world’s
fair and to commemorate the 20th
year of Fascism in Italy. The
planners hoped to create a new
center for Rome away from the
historic center so they built a
highway and subway line to bring
people out to this new part of
Rome. World War II started
before it could be finished
(although many of the permanent
structure were ready for use)
and it was found empty by
American forces as they moved
into Rome at the end of the war.
The US had offices in EUR into
the ’40s. I imagine the eerily
empty feeling the soldiers must
have gotten when they found the
place was just a little more
extreme than the feeling the
place has today. We were told
the buildings are now in use by
the Italians, but we hardly saw
any other people the whole hour
and a half we were there. The
day we went it was really sunny
and the white buildings were
blinding and in stark contrast
to the deep shadows of the
arches that were meant to
reference classical
architecture. I read in a travel
guide that
EUR
can resemble works by
De Chirico
and I
definitely agree. (Click on
“EUR” and “De Chirico” to see
what I mean.)
This weekend, I decided to go back to Florence to see some of the things I missed the first time. I took the “slow train” there which gave me time for homework and to see the Italian countryside through Lazio and Toscana. When I arrived I met the friend I stayed with last time and we went to see the inside of the Florence Cathedral. It was very simple compared to many of the churches in Rome, but the floors decorated with stone in lots of different patterns and the inside of the dome had a scene of the Last Judgement. After that we went to see a Bernini exhibit at Bargello Museum which was first a town hall, then a prison, and now is the museum. There I also saw Donatello’s bronze David and other sculptures by Michelangelo and others. After stopping to get a crepe we walked across the Ponte Veccio to the Palazzo Pitti. I should mention that all the museums were free because it was the “Week of Culture”, so the line was really long but worth it! There was a huge collection of paintings from Renaissance painters like Raphael, Titian, and Rubens, royal apartments (including a bathroom for Napoleon), and a “modern” art gallery.
Late that night/early the next morning, we were taken on an adventure to a “secret bakery”. The story goes that there are six bakeries in Florence that makes all the breads for all the shops in the city and they make the bread all night and then deliver it in the morning. Apparently these bakeries are supposed to sell the breads, only make it, so there locations aren’t advertised or even marked. One of these “secret bakeries” was just around the corner from where we were staying. So we get to the bakery and enter a slightly opened door and see a line of people waiting silently in line for the man behind the counter to take their requests. This bakery was the “pizza and croissant” bakery- luck for us! The pizza I got was so good! The crust was fluffy and still warm from the oven.
After the sun came up, we went to get breakfast (a waffle with nutella for me) and then to the Boboli gardens which are just behind the Pitti Palace. The line was longer then than it had been the day before, but at least it wasn’t raining like it had been on and off the day before. Once we got through the gate and into the garden we walked up a really steep hill and then down to a fountain. All the pathways were lined with trees and there were smaller garden paths off the main one. They had even reconstructed a building with a courtyard from Pompeii off one of the smaller paths. Back towards the entrance we went to see a man-made “grotto” with sculptures of mythological beings, a large pool of water, and a painted ceiling. Unfortunately we couldn’t go in, but we could see most of it from the outside. After that it was already time for me to catch my train back to Rome. I got back just in time for a nap, dinner, skype-ing, and then to study for my Italian test.
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From the Ara Pacis to MaXXI
April 26, 2009
Ara Pacis
Friday,
we had a six hour architecture
class and so were able to see a
lot of Rome. We started out at
the Ara Pacis museum which was
the first modern building in
historic Rome since the
Fascists. The Romans are still
throwing fits about its
deconstructionist form, but I
liked it. We were there to look
at the museum itself, but the
Ara Pacis (altar to peace) is a
great work of art/architecture
from ancient Rome so it was
interesting to see that too.
After the museum we went across
town to see the Rome Olympic
facilities. They started out as
a school for gym teachers in the
Fascist era and pretty rapidly
developed into the Foro
Mussolini sports complex. The
Fascist hoped to host the
Olympics, but did not have the
honor until 1960- by that time
the area was renamed the Foro
Italico. Interestingly there
Fascist imagery is still very
much a part of the complex.
“Duce Duce Duce” and the Fascist
symbol, the fasces, are
everywhere. We also stopped by
an art museum being built in
Rome that is dedicated to the
21st century abbreviated as
MaXXI that is very modern too.
Our final stop was the Music
Auditorium of Rome built by
Renzo Piano in 2002 that looks
like three lead beetles on the
top of the curved hill- very
pretty beetles though.
See it here.
Sunday, I took advantage of the last day of free museums and finally went to the Capitoline Museum. I was not disappointed! It had quite the collection spanning centuries and media. It was also one of the few museums that allows pictures so I’ve added them in the pictures section for everyone to enjoy. My favorite thing was probably the museum itself. I’m not sure if you will be able to tell from the pictures, but the museum did not have a boring display in the whole place! I particularly liked the dark squares that they used as backdrops for the white sculptures. I was also excited to see the famous bronze sculpture of the She-Wolf with Romulus and Remus and pieces of the giant Constantine sculpture. Too bad the museums aren’t free everyday…
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Hiroshige and La Traviata
May 3, 2009
This
week I was finally able to see
the Hiroshige exhibit at the
Fondazione Roma Museum!
Hiroshige was a Japanese artist
working at the start of the 19th
century making wood block prints
and water colors. His prints
were so popular that they were
brought to Europe and inspired
artists like Manet and Van Gogh.
At the exhibit they played a
video to show how his wood block
prints would have been printed
(one color at a time) which was
really interesting.
Such precision! They had also
completely redesigned the inside
of the museum since the last
exhibit I saw there (the
Rembrandt and Vermeer one). The
inside was filled with shoji
screens, traditional Japanese
music, and Hiroshige’s art of
course. After seeing it I
finally felt ready to write my
paper on ephemeral Japanese
architecture for my Heritage
Management Class. This weekend I went to see the opera La Traviata being performed in the church called St. Paul’s Within the Walls on the Via Republica. I had heard some of the songs before at the opera sampling I went to in Venice back in February. I really liked the inside of the church (we studied it in my Architecture of Modern Italy class), but it was almost impossible to see the singers over the heads of everyone in front of us. Apparently other people were having trouble seeing too because for most of the show I was entertained with seeing meerkat-like silhouettes bobbing around to try to get a look at the performers. At least we could all hear the music.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Ciao Roma
May 11, 2009
Overall, Rome has been a good experience and during these past four months I think I’ve learned a lot about myself and about what I want for my future. I’ve really enjoyed being able to travel so easily and I’ve gotten to see and do so many amazing things!