Ciao my friendlies!
I hope you can forgive my lack of posting on account of this past weekend was more or less a free weekend. Saturday, we saw the amazing Vatican Museum. :D it was truly an incredible experience. I made sure that I saw the Sistine Chapel first, and then after that, my eyes were rewarded with marvelous treasures of the Catholic church as well as art from ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt. To me, this truly captures just how global the Catholic Church truly is, and even though the statues from Greece and Egypt were, I guess for lack of a better term, 'false gods', the fact that this art is displayed in tbe Vatican Museum shows how much the Church values these pieces as works of art and inspiration, as well as history that deserves to be preserved for future generations to enjoy. Apparently, there was also a contemporary art exhibit by artists such as Salvador Dahli and Francis Bacon. I totaly missed this exhibit and I really wish I didn't. -.- I mean, contemporary art isn't exactly my field of interest, but I still believe it definitely would've been cool to see.
The next day was amazing!... for the most part. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures, but early in the morning, some of my classmates and I hopped on the train and went to San Marinella beach for the day. It was amazing how the tickeg was only four euros for a twenty minute train ride to the coast. The free beach wasn't too crowded, especially when we got there in the morning. The water was warm, and the sand from the beach felt really nice. My skin is all smooth and rejuvenated from the Mediterranean environment. The downside to this excursion was that I got badly sunburnt and stepped on a sea urchin. XD
So, that was my weekend. Today, we went to St. Agostino, Madonna dei Pellegrini, the French church of San Luigi dei Francesi. I was absolutely blown away by St. Agostino. The church was so beautiful, it displayed a painting by Michaelangelo Carvaggio of the Virgin with Child and two people kneeling in adoration. We learned about how Carvaggio's art style was different compared to his collegues and rivals. While other painters strived for heavenly colors and perfect figures, Carvaggio prefered to paint from life. This caused the subjects of his paintings to be hyper realistic with details involving wrinkles and dirty clothes and skin. In his St. Matthew paintings, especially the painting of St. Matthew, The Inspiration of St. Matthew, Matthew didn't look like a glorified, perfect being, but a wrinkled old man that you might see on the street. This reminds me of the artist, Rembrandt, and how both artists could capture a certain beauty and quality in these everyday, ordinary, lowly people.
The last thing we did was see the art gallery, Borrocco e Roma, which featured various Baroque paintings and sculptures as well as rough drafts of great works of art like Bernini's Habukkuk sculpture in a minature terracotta form. It was very interesting learning about how much these artists depended on the use of scale to get their art right. Before this excursion, though, I went with my classmates to a restaurant and had seafood pasta where I had clams for the first time, and it was delicious. ^_^
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