The Magnitude of Art

Florence, Italy, where it all began…the birthplace of the Renaissance, where art became a vital part of culture. And today was the day, the first time on our trip that I would see the art that had been etched into my heart and mind for over 50 years. We would go to the Uffizi and the Accademia--museums that would house some of the finest collections of art in the world: the Statue of David, Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, the list goes on and on. 

How would I feel, I often wondered, upon seeing the grand statue of David for the first time? Having been tutored about the Masters of art since I was 12 years old, I quickly fell in love with the art of Michelangelo. The Statue of David, the Pieta and the Sistine Chapel had only been in books for me, and now I was finally going to witness their magnitude in person.

The Accademia had a serene, luminous feel. With no photography allowed (thank you Wikipedia for the photo below!) we entered the galleries of white marble that were lined with opalescent sculptures at every corner. As I turned, there it was, under a rotunda at the end of the hall, the Statue of David.

Now I knew why his hands were so large compared to the rest of his body. Now I understood his stance of completion, of utter self-confidence and heroics. Now I felt the story of David and Goliath. I knew why the wind knocked out of me when I stood beneath this 17 foot tall sculpture carved out of one piece of marble. Michelangelo had created emotion in stone, all at the age of 26.

We then walked the streets of Florence on to the Uffizi, one of the oldest and most famous art museums of the Western world. With a textbook piece of architecture around every corner, the walks were like being in a museum itself. Here’s a classic sculpture for us tourists, that we saw while waiting in line...

The Uffizi was a display place for many of the paintings and sculpture collected or commissioned by the Medici family and was filled with (what seemed like forever), long hallways and rooms filled with the religious art of da Vinci, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Raphael, to name a few. If the art was there to impress, it accomplished the mission.

Not wanting to stop our exploration, we searched out the Boboli Gardens, a park of 16th century Italian gardens in Florence that is behind the Pitti Palace, the main seat of the Medici grand dukes of Tuscany at Florence.

The view of Florence was breathtaking, the experience of art all around us.