1/22/09

First week of classes was intense! There were so many textbooks and art supplies that needed to be purchased and so many errands to run. I spent almost $200 just on painting supplies alone ugh. But at least now I have new, clean brushes, which makes me very happy. One of my classes, Batik, is all the way in the center of Florence, around the Duomo, and it takes me like 25 min to walk there from the Villa Rossa (the main school building). I have been using a map to get myself around the city and I have been very impressed with my navigation skills! I didn't get too lost anywhere and I was able to find my way to and from the center without a problem. Florence is crazy to get used to because of all the winding narrow streets and all the long street names.


It's impossible to memorize. And on top of that it has so many different piazzas. I'm pretty much getting the hang of it because I have been walking around so much this whole week. On average, I walk about 2 to 3 hrs per day and I enjoy every minute of it because the streets are so beautiful. It's impossible to walk with another person beside you on many of the streets because they are way too narrow. Most of the time when you're walking and another person is walking towards you, you have to get off the sidewalk and step into the street to let them pass.

My Batik class is my favorite class so far. I have an old British woman for a professor. She is so sweet and she has one of those old, rich British lady accents. For those of you who don't know what Batik is...I'm honestly not sure either. It has something to do with painting beautiful images on silk material by using wax and dipping techniques. I don't know exactly how it works but all I know that it's very time consuming but the silk scarves come out beautiful in the end. We are going to do four silk scarves throughout the semester.

My Masterpieces of Art class (art history class) had a site visit today to the Piazza Signorina. It's one of the most famous piazzas in Italy and it is decorated all around with incredible sculptures. The original David was placed in that Piazza before, and now they are currently putting a replica of David in the same spot. I've walked by the piazza several times before but never looked twice at the sculptures. I just thought that they were there for decoration. But all these sculptures are actually very very significant pieces and most of them are placed there for some symbolic reason. There are a few by Donatello, and one that struck me as the most beautiful was Perseus and Medusa (by Cellini). It was considered to be even more beautiful than the David at the time and it was appropriately placed facing David in the Piazza Signorina. It looks like David is staring at Medusa...and that is why he has turned into stone. Genius!

After learning about several of the sculptures I decided to go to the Uffizi galeries right next to the Piazza because I had 2 hours left before my next class. I never went to a museum by myself before. It was truly an incredible experience because for the first time I was not rushed by anyone and I was able to take all the time I wanted looking at the artwork. I sneaked a few photos, and got yelled at by one of the guards in Italian. I started out with the religious art from the Middle Ages and worked my way up to the beginning of the Renaissance. I never liked religious art before, but after taking a closer look I now appreciate it much more. I began to realize how powerful all these artworks were because they were the only way to communicate the stories of the Bible for the general public to understand. I saw the original Birth of Venus by Botticelli and a bunch of other paintings by him. I also saw several paintings by Leonardo di Vinci, which were very inspiring. I probably saw like a tenth of the entire museum so I'll definitely come back there soon.