Vatican City

A trip to the Vatican City forged my sentiment about Michelangelo being one of the greatest, if not the best, visual artist of all time. I personally feel his frescoes at the Sistine Chapel, which took him 4 years to finish, encompass his genius as a painter. Here is a self-portrait within “The Last Judgment” which he said depicts exactly how he felt after he finished, which was “very exhausted, like creeping out of (his) own skin.” When our tour guide explained this unusual self-portrait, I couldn’t help thinking how he could prefer to immortalise himself in such a “negative” way. It was only when I actually saw the Sistine Chapel for myself, which was stagerring to say the least considering it was work “he accepted reluctantly, because his only real love, then as in all his life, was not painting but sculpture,” that I began to understand why he felt so “spent.”

Later on, readings consistently revealed the same “reluctant” if not almost “resentful” feelings he had about this famous fresco. “This was due not only to the sheer size of the surface that he had to cover with frescoes (some 500 square meters) and the complex design of the whole work, but also to the extremely uncomfortable position in which he had to work, and the poor lighting, which made the task even more difficult. During all these years Michelangelo had gradually become more unsociable, bad-tempered and irascible…he was, as we put it today, a ‘difficult’ person, but in fact he was only giving vent to the nervous tension inside him.”

Unfortunately I don’t have photos to share of the Sistine Chapel or other paintings for that matter. Either I was scared of our tour guide who admitted she felt “defiled or slapped whenever tourists flash their cameras” or I genuinely felt I needed to give my proper respect by refraining to do so. It’s probably in between both.

I don't know if it's because I don't ‘respect’ sculptures as much as paintings --- in my mind, sculptures are probably less sensitive to light as paintings. I could be wrong --- but there I was amongst throngs of people who clicked away (still mindful of my tour guide's sentiments who didn't seem to mind). So here are a few things I took. I have so many other stories behind each piece but I don’t want to bore you with the details. So I’ll just hide behind the statement, “pictures speak a thousand words."

Firenze - Blast from the Past

The first Italian city I set foot on was Firenze (Florence). What began as a journey towards the cradle of the Renaissance movement fascinatingly became a surreal trip down memory lane: readings, lectures and exams in school as well as late-night conversations over barako coffee and some bibingka (native dessert) with my Mom and Tita Luchi (a bonafide artist) on related topics. I couldn’t help acquiring a newfound appreciation for my teachers in art, literature, history, even music and Christian Life (religion)...more distinctly Miss Windor’s almost nagging reference to the “grandeur of Rome!" Back then, my classmates and I annoyingly thought, "what the fuss was all about!" It was only years after did I actually wholeheartedly agree with my high school English teacher on this count, as I walked through Firenze and watched storybooks, encyclopedia and still slide shows from a distant past come alive!

The Uffizi Gallery had my mouth gaping from start to finish. From Byzantine paintings of Madonnas and Children to influential works of Filippo Lippi (siya pala si Fra Lippo Lippi…all this time I thought that was just the name of an 80’s band!) to the ‘greater’ (or more famous…amongst trying-to-be-art-enthusiasts like yours truly) masterpieces of Botticelli, El Greco, Da Vinci, Raphael and, of course, Michaelangelo! Several of my companions and I had become instant fans of Michaelangelo after seeing his major works in Florence and Rome.

I was fortunate enough to have prebooked a guided tour of The Uffizi which allowed me to bypass queues that took hours to get into the museum. When we reached the Botticelli room, curiously there were long benches in the middle of the room. I suddenly understood why when I stood in front of “The Birth of Venus” and later on “La Primavera” My knees turned into jello when I saw these great pieces that I literally sank into a bench as I quietly admired the paintings. They had the same effect on my other tour groupmates. Our tour guide said, “Oh, don’t worry. We get that a lot. I think that’s why they have these benches. Take your time.”

My next and greater heart-stopping episode was at the Galleria dell'Accademia. By this time, I had rejoined Trang, Noy and Noi. Just when we thought we were getting the hang of and have had enough of Florentine artworks, we enter this room that had us screeching to a full stop. As in we halted for probably a good 5-10 minutes, 50 meters away from the legendary Michaelangelo sculpture of “David!” It’s not like we agreed “Ok let’s stop right here.” No, its perfectly imperfect beauty (David’s head and hands are disproportionately bigger than the rest of his body) simply demanded for a respectful, speechless pause. As we slowly approached this amazing piece of marble, we saw a number of “draft Davids” on both sides of the corridor.

I kept asking my friends, “How long will it take you to create something like that (the ‘final’ David) from a single slab of marble?!?” Initially, none of them would answer. Eventually, Trang exasperatedly said, “Forever!!!”

Me? Never. And Michaelangelo? Well, it only took him 2 years to sculpt David into perfection.

(Also check out Trang's blog on the same, entitled "David")