Yesterday, the group and I went to Florence. My goal of the day and dream since being an art student was to see the statue of David carved by Michelangelo. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. I carried out my quest by downloading the map Mark emailed the group and formulated a route.
Step 1: Find David at Accademia
Step 2: Visit Santa Maria Del Fiore
Step 3: Find market and...TRY not to spend a lot of money.
Step 4: Have fun :)
My fellow adventurer's, bella Jazz and bella Bobbi.
Jazz
Bobbi
Molto Bella! *Very Beautiful* <3
We began our journey at 7: 30am with breakfast, then loaded the shuttle and traversed to Florence. We arrived at 10:00am and began an epic adventure. Florence is beautiful! It has city aspects of Roma and Naples, lots to do but not very busy and lots of people who speak English.....and cleaner than Naples. Naples was dirty, but anyway. Pictures! The first interesting artwork we stumble upon is this resourceful and creative creation designed on saran wrap. Inventive stuff right there. Boom! I have plans to do this all over Gibson Park when I return home.
Here are some shots I snapped along the river as we walked to the first intersection, where we would divide into groups and journey to wherever each group was planning to go, ours was said plan listed previously. In this picture there is a man fishing out in the middle of the water. I marked on the second one for those who struggle.
Tiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnyyyy fisherman!
Very pretty view with cool lanterns on the railing, and the back of Jazz <3
Cool doors...be prepared for lots of pictures of doors. I see a lot of doors that I find visually pleasing so...there will be many. These doors in the below picture were HUGE metal doors that opened in fourths.
Cool door knocker. Took this for my best friend Ariel mainly, because it reminds me of the door knockers from her favorite movie the Labyrinth.....I still have yet to find David Bowie and bring him back for her.
Italy never fails to surprise me with breathtaking buildings and scenic views. I would get a constant high of wonder and awe in Rome when I first arrived in Italy, the feeling of being awe struck would hit when I would round street corner buildings and see something that seemed surreal to anything I've ever seen in America.. I keep reminding myself of those moments whenever I feel a little jaded from seeing stone structures.
After splitting into groups, we started to travel towards the Academia to see David <3 Along the way though we stumbled upon many treasures. Including this statue of Neptune in Piazza Della Signoria.
Back shot
Front shot!....and coincidentally to our left we find.....
Tada! The statue of Perseus Slaying Medusa....followed by...
Hercules and the Centaur. The scenic gods of Florence were smiling upon us yesterday...
We left the Piazza after awhile and continued our rumpus through the streets of Florence. We stopped at few shops along the way, which consisted of a chocolate shop, H&M clothing store, and perfume store in the picture below.
In the picture above to the right is Callie. Callie and Adrien were with us on our journey the first part of the day then split off when we arrived at the Academia to go to the market. As we continue to make our way to the Accademia though we staggered upon the Santa Maria Del Fiore. The Sant Maria was the most beatiful, huge, and grand churches I had ever seen...in America and Italy. The picture below doesn't do justice to the size. I wasn't able to get a picture of the whole church because there wasn't enough street room to back up and take one with the whole thing in the frame, so I just got snaps of sections...which is fine! :)
If you look at the size of the people you kind of get an idea of how big the building is.
Fail: I don't know how to rotate the photo on here....
After experiencing the magnificence of Santa Maria Del Fiore we finally arrived at the Academia. The anticipation grew as we waited in line for an hour and I ate my sack lunch.
I can't remember the name of the artist for the one below, but I took a picture because the way the light is painted on the form of the body is...so soft and precise.
I've taken a lot of photos of hands from statues and paintings on this trip. I like hands and I've always felt an appreciation for the various ways artist's represent and capture them. As an artist I like the challenge. I made an emotional connection with hands after my 8 year old brother passed away. Since he was handicapped I held him a lot of the time or would hold his hands, so one of the things I missed most after he died was being able to hold him. I showed this through some of my pieces I created one semester. I drew a lot of hands in my sketchbook and now I have this never ending visual liking, appreciation for the expression, and emotional connection to them.
Francis Bacon <3 ....He stole my heart with "Figure with Meat."
aaaaaaaaand.........
Boom! We found David! We weren't allowed pictures but luckily we did not know this until after I got my lovely picture with him <3
This has definitely been a dream of mine since I first learned about it in Art History 4 years ago. The weight of emotional awe and just....being speechless was indescribable. He was magnificent, grand, and flawless. The right hand grasping the stone was heroic, with the subtle but form shaping light. The way physical strength was portrayed through his posture with a slight lean, to the size of the hands, and the serious expression. I was ecstatic to have the masterpiece from Michelangelo himself within my presence.
After my surreal experience at the museum we visited a local market and did souvenir shopping, then we headed back to the Villa, had dinner, and shared tales of our epic journey's. Well, that concludes my grandiose adventure. Adventure 1: Complete.
CHALLENGE COMPLETED
Thanks for reading! I will be posting another adventure tomorrow :)
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