Florence: Uffizi Gallery

Duomo

I really need a cafe. My brain is pumping. I just visited the Uffizi Gallery. Rembrandt and Caravaggio both use this mixture of what looks like raw umber and cadmium red. Rembrandt remains the master, but Caravaggio is excitement and passion. I had no idea Rembrandt was there at Uffizi. Three paintings, one self-portrait as a young man, one of an old rabbi and another self-portrait as an old man. My heart can barely conceive of the love in these works. It makes me want to push past my limitations and reach that state of love. I feel so full, my brain and spirit are stretching, bursting. I also saw Botticelli, Tintoretto, da Vinci, Titian. After seeing Rembrandt and the other masters I didn't want to pollute my mind by looking at lesser masters. Oh, AND Judith Beheading Holofernes by Artemesia Gentileschi rivals the Judith by Carravaggio. The Caravaggios at the Uffizi were of Young Bacchus and Medusa's Head painted on a shield. They were first rate, but nothing in that museum compared to the Rembrandts. How could it? I did appreciate the peeled eyeballs affect of looking at a finished da Vinci, The Annunciation, but must say I prefer Jan Van Eyck to da Vinci if that's what you're going for. My brain is too full. By the time I am done with Venice I will be ready to explode.
-Oh, to top it off... We walked past the Galeria Academia and the line was crazy! -wrapped around the building. We came past the eye dazzling Duomo of Santa Maria di Fiorno then to the Uffizi. The line was out of sight there, too. We inquired about which line we should be in, speaking with a guard posted at the entrance. We could stand in one giant line if we had reservations and another giant line if we didn't have reservations. My mother said, "This line here? Oh, okay." The line for regular tickets was taped off around the corner of the entrance and they admitted groups of people at a time. My typically mild mannered mother ducked under this taped barrier and cut in front of about 400 people. Nobody seemed to notice! My sister and I followed her, slightly aghast at her deed. She turned to us and said, "If you want to get ahead in life you have to be willing to cross the line sometimes." I think she was motivated by seeing how crushing it was not to see the Borghese gallery, but, really, I would have had to sacrifice seeing Uffizi or the Galeria Academia if it took all day to wait for one of them. I needed to be in that museum.
This coffee was wonderful.
I think the blue I'm having trouble identifying in the flesh of Rembrandt and Caravaggio is probably French Ultramarine. I rarely use it. I can't wait to try using their color combinations when I get home. I took a discreet photo, no flash of course, of the hands in Rembrandt's Old Rabbi painting. They are so colorful and gauzy yet descriptive. Da Vinci's drawing in his paintings is perfect, but Rembrandt understood before his contemporaries the meaning of painting. The way he uses brush strokes says, "this is a painting with a soul."
Walking back to the hotel in Firenze (Florence), the rain finely freckled us. I paused to video and photograph graffiti that had been washed out and re-exposed from under layers of peeling paint and plastered posters that were faded and shredding. A man rode by on a bicycle. He gray beard matched the dog that rode in the front basket, barking at people on the sidewalks. We passed the botanic gardens and the air smelled green.

The St. Matthew Cycle and the Catholic Church's defiling of the Pantheon

Early rising this morning was again difficult because of sleeplessness. We made it to San Luigi dei Francesi and laid eyes upon the three paintings in the St. Matthew Cycle by Caravaggio. Again, all other paintings in the cathedral looked like washed out illustrations after viewing the rich dramascapes of Caravaggio. I stood in front of them for a long time. Tour group after tour group filtered in and out. The love and care poured into these paintings is overwhelming. That cliche about my heart feeling like it could burst came to mind, I really felt that way. I feel drained emotionally. We made a feeble attempt to find the Bernini sculpture at a church we didn't know the name of around the train station some where. In the train station is a mall and I loved the shoes, the heels? What is up with me?

San Luigi dei Popolo and the St. Matthew Cycle by Caravaggio. In the background, The Martyrdom of St. Matthew.

The Pantheon

Colosseum

We entered the Pantheon after going to see the Caravaggios. Apparently the Catholic Church restored the inside, maybe some of the outside of the Pantheon. The statues of Greek gods and goddesses were moved to the Vatican. The Pantheon has been turned into a basilica with statues of martyrs and a pulpit and altar. My heart was troubled by this. The Colosseum was also stamped with a huge cross. I feel as if these places have been stripped of their connection with history, graffitied by Christianity and defiled to their true purpose. The argument is that the Catholic Church saved the structures from crumbling. Intriguing in a scandalous way, the Vatican houses statues and relics of Greek gods, Egyptian gods and Mayan gods, probably more. they have a great collection and their archives are off limits to laymen. I'm tired. My body is tired. My heart is tired. My mind is tired.

Love and Caravaggio

Trees at Borghese Villa

Santa Maria del Popolo

After being sleepless last night we all accidentally slept until 10am. I pulled a dress on over my head and zipped downstairs because breakfast closes at 10. Coffee and croissants were still there. The lines to get on the bus were long at the terminal so we walked 10 minutes to the Colosseum. We didn't go inside because I was concerned about getting to the Borghese Galeria. We got on the bus at the Colosseum where the lines were minimal and arrived at Borghese Villa which is a campus of gardens, trees, paths, a zoo, museums, the galeria and more. It was beautiful. The trees rang with the sound of cicadas and a breeze made temperature in the shade perfect. My adrenaline surged as we approached Galeria Borghese which houses close to a dozen Caravaggios. Because the building is so old, only a certain number of viewers are allowed in each day. I remembered, after the fact, that reservations were strongly recommended. The day was sold out and I would be on a train to Florence when the next available tickets would apply. The galeria is closed on Mondays. I fought back tears and bought a Caravaggio book. I bucked up and thought, this is not how my day will end. Thumbing through the book, I located other places in Rome that had Caravaggios work: Santa Maria de Popolo and San Luigi dei Francesi. After becoming frustrated with the map, which seemed to be of Rome from Earth 9 rather than this Earth, we flagged down a cab and arrived at the church. I waited until 4:30pm until the doors opened. I hate listening to the sounds of people when they are eating. Standing in the heat, I waited with a small crowd. Across the street in the piazza, were a family who had rented "people movers" to get around the town. This seems extremely silly and removing. I quickly scouted out the paintings in a dark, small chapel to the left of the main altar. They were on either side of the chapel and blocked from being seen straight on so had I was forced to view them from almost a 45 degree angle. You have to pay a couple of Euros to activate the lights that illuminate the paintings. The paintings were of The Crucifixion of St. Peter and the Conversion of St. Paul on the Road to Damascus.
Oh my gods! Look at the toes! The toe nails, the throbbing veins, straining muscles, the way the hair swirls in a different direction where the flank meets the belly on the horse. St. Peter's expression of pain through which he believes he is undeserving to be crucified upright like Christ, his master. His subtle self-resentment and acceptance of his execution.
The dust between fingers and nails, the gray dirt on the bottoms of feet, the light glinting off a single finger nail. The way the horse's eye careens doe-fully toward Paul in confusion at seeing its master helpless, belly-up on his back in the dirt. The crows sound different here, like people laughing in a strange, lustful manner.
Did they sing these same songs when Caravaggio a.k.a. Michelangelo Merisi, was carousing the streets with his drunken sabre, making mischief. I can imagine the holy folk commissioning a painting from him. "You want a painting... I'll make a painting for you... how do you like this?" Delacroix and Rembrandt have the technique and skill, but the drama of Caravaggio I daresay surpasses theirs. He overwhelms you with passion but leaves things mysterious where you want them most obvious, leaves you wanting more.
My brain burned. I sketched the paintings in my mind, tracing the lines, prominent lines around the figures of raw umber? I began trying to mix his colors in my mind, umber with cadmium red. Cadmium yellow, alizarin, cobalt, lead white. Layers of glazing. I'm thinking about my paintings unfinished at home and looking forward to time in my lowly kitchen studio again. I'm also looking forward to holding and talking with my children again. It's time to work and enrich the lives around me. I really would enjoy a cigarette. Today, upon arriving back at the hotel room, the sweat and dust created a slime on my skin. I toweled it off and felt satisfied knowing that I am sweating out impurities from my body.

When I was waiting to go inside the church I was conscious of the uncomfortable heat and the burning blisters forming above my heels, my sandal straps have been wearing away my skin on my achilles tendons. I smiled and felt like this was pain to remind me of my lesson I am receiving. "I come to you with a humble heart" I said in my mind to Caravaggio, over and over again. While I stood in his presence, the presence he's left for us, I could feel part of my heart filling up with love. I have to temper myself and discipline myself so I can share this love with other people in the same, gracefully gripping, compelling and passionate way. I want to be Love Conduit. I don't want to drain people. I want them to feel full like the way I felt looking at those paintings.