#unfinished Michelangelo’s Dying Slave

[artchyoungk]

Michelangelo’s David work in progress, 1501.

This is the actual stone that David killed Goliath in around 1000 BC.

[ayliamc]

Italia

Day 7 - Heresy

Steps walked: 17,889

Flights climbed: 13

Vehicles ridden: 0!

Points of interest visited: 3

Leonardos spotted: only Michelangelos today

Early pink rays of the sun started to reflect off the Arno and into our bedroom this morning as we woke leisurely, having no train to catch and no hotel room to check out of. It felt so luxurious.

As to the mosquito, she may have been accidentally killed by Dan in his sleep when he scratched an itch on his nose, but I did not wake up unscathed. My arm is a tapestry of bug bites, with a few more scattered throughout the rest of my body. My last count was around a dozen.

We took our time waking up and having breakfast and around 10 I opened my email to look for the confirmation email to visit the Galleria dell’Academia to see the David at 1. I wanted to see if admission to the museum was at 1, or if it was a more specific time to see the David and we could go to the museum earlier.

Surprise surprise, our tickets were for… *drumroll please* 10 am. I naturally started to panic. We scarfed down a few more bites, got dressed, and were out the door just over five minutes later to start the short 15 minute trek to the Galleria. We were both 95% sure that they would let us in, but there’s always that 5% that says “They’re sold out, and they won’t let you in, and you came all the way to Firenze to see this sculpture and cross it off your bucket list and you fucked it up.”

There was a huge line wrapped around the Galleria and our admission was for between 10 and 10:15. So I said if they give us grief, we made it here by 10:15 (barely a fib, we really booked it) and have been in line ever since. Naturally it wasn’t a problem. They were monitoring ticket entry times, but they seemed to be turning away people who were early. I don’t know what would have happened had we been three hours late. No need to worry though! We strolled in with the masses clamoring to see the David.

I half expected a massive museum filled with other untold treasures, the David tucked away in its own room at the end, but it kind of leapt right out at us immediately off the bat. Sure there were other pieces, including a bunch of unfinished Michelangelos.

As you can see from these pieces, Michelangelo was as gay as the day is long. His pieces are all “tortured slave” or “dying slave” or “slave who just hit his head on a cabinet”** but they all seem to me to be contorted in semi-erotic poses. Tortured, sure, but sexualized. I think it adequately represents how the sculptor felt about his own sexuality.

I tried not to look at the David as we approached it, for some reason unbraced for the experience. It’s hard not to, tho. It’s so big. We circled it and marveled and cocked our heads (no pun intended) and admired and circled it a few more times. I could have stayed there for an hour. The thought of leaving made me sad. This has been a bucket list item for me for as long as I can remember, and the whole experience sort of caught me off guard. Not only did I think it would be in the afternoon, but I also didn’t expect it to be one of the first things on display at the Galleria. There was no build up to it. I was just suddenly in a room with the David. And I didn’t want to leave it.

But leave we must. The rest of the museum wasn’t speaking to us. In fact, we desperately wanted to get away from all the horrifying medieval baby paintings (all with the same face of a washed up mid-30s white male comedian). So we headed for the Basilica de Santa Croce, that cool church we happened upon yesterday. We got tickets to go inside, swallowing our discomfort at giving money to the church.

I was immediately put off when they requested I cover my shoulders. Apparently my tank top is too inappropriate for the institution that displays a tortured corpse above all their altars. They had plastic shawls for people to cover their shoulders or wrap around their waist if the clothes are deemed too revealing but fortunately I had a top to put on over my existing top. Here’s how I felt about it:

Lots of tombs, lots of monuments. The coolest:

* Galileo Galilei. This made me mad. How DARE the church claim his body, build a monument to him, after they exiled him for blasphemy and heresy? He changed the world for the better. Expanded our knowledge and understanding of the universe. The church banished him. And now they charge people €8 each to pay respects to his remains???

* Michelangelo. Ok yeah he was religious. But he was so gay and the church is a homophonic institution. Also audacious to have him here.

* Machiavelli. Hilarious that he’s so celebrated. Such a dick. No qualms with him being here.

* Tribute to Leonardo. He’s buried in France but they’re very proud of him so fine.

* Tribute to Dante. He’s buried in Ravenna. I accept this tribute. Makes total sense. Especially considering the nature of his most famous works.

* Florence Nightingale. Huh? What? Wasn’t she English? Is it just because her name is Florence? Well guess what my friends. Her name is Florence because she was born here! Her tribute was too small. We have her to thank in part for sterilization of medical equipment.

Lunch time. Despite my previous insistence on only going to vegan restaurants Dan talked me into going to a nearby vegetarian place that was half restaurant half cafe half bookshop dontquestionthemath. Turned out to be great. Gnocchi and tortellini and both phenomenally vegan.

We then discovered the Museo Galileo and looked it up and decided we had to go there. So our afternoon was spent looking at ancient sextants and astrolabes and thermometers and telescopes and microscopes. We even got to see Galileo’s literal telescopes. Like the ones he actually used to find the moons of Jupiter.

Then we stumbled upon a little glass display with a single digit inside: Galileo’s right middle finger.

This took me a moment to wrap my head around as you can see:

When his body was exhumed and moved to the Santa Croce where we saw it entombed, three fingers, a tooth, and a vertebrae were removed. One of the fingers is at this museum. No idea where the rest are. The gift shop was underwhelming. Sorry, dad. I wanted to get you a replica Galileo thingamabob for Yule but no such luck.

Our next stop was the museum next to the Duomo but it was sold out so we got our tickets for tomorrow. We meandered once more, saw a few dozen more incredible and ancient pieces of art, and went back to our apartment to have some wine before going out to dinner. We ended up setting chairs in our bedroom to look out over the Arno and our spectacular view as we enjoyed our wine, and at dusk a bunch of bats came out and started to feed so we watched them til dark. It was awesome.

Lunch was a 20 minute walk in a straight line to Il Vegano, a little hole in the wall that turned out to be outrageously flavorful and totally inexpensive. We got three entrées, one drink, and two desserts. <chef’s kiss>

On the way back to our apartment, night had fallen in earnest and we were serenaded by the outrageously talented buskers of Firenze, all thanks to the art mouth they live on no doubt.

Some thoughts about Firenze in no particular order:

* In the same way that the streets in Venezia were populated only by people, so too are these streets. The difference is that every once in a while everyone has to make space for a car fighting bravely against the pedestrian swarm. It’s hilarious.

* If I don’t have the river in sight, I lose all sense of direction. Put me next to the Arno and I know where I am. But once it’s out of my line of vision forget about it. I will lose myself among the winding, senseless paths and stare up at the 900 year old buildings and never find my way home.

* Oh yes, the apartment we’re staying in is in a 900 year old building. I wonder if the wifi was this bad back then. That also means it was here when Leonardo lived here.

* In Buffy, there’s a lot of demonic activity because Sunnydale is built on a hell mouth. Well I now have a theory that Firenze is built on an art mouth. It begets genius in art. It seeps out of the ground, the water, the trees. The buildings are imbued with an eternal wellspring of creativity.

* We had one set activity in mind for our visit to Firenze. Both of us wondered idly a few times “what will we do in Firenze? We have three days there!” Turns out it’s not enough time. We keep stumbling upon museums containing treasures and iconic artefacts and even historic corpses! (Or pieces thereof…) I could spend another week here and still not see everything I want to see. On the way to the tomb of Galileo we’ll discover the workshop where Michelangelo craved the David. How can we see it all?? We haven’t even left the historic district since arriving to our apartment.

**Dan named this one.

[my-world-travel]

Louvre, Paris, France

Two of these are from the early modern period and the third is Michelangelo, they are linked entirely by not being older than 1500 years.

Photo 1 is Michelangelo’s Dying Slave, which I...almost bypassed entirely, because I was overwhelmed and there were Roman artifacts to find. I do regret this, since there’s a lot of really cool writing out there about the meaning of its unfinished state and the title, whether those are related, which of them have to do with “the Pope changed his mind about his funerary decor”, etc.

Photo 2 is Mercury on Pegasus, sculpted at the end of the 17th century for Louis XIV. For those with an interest in art, the main thing of note here (not the horse) is that it is carved from a single block of marble. There are no joins. There was no room for error. Amazing.

Photo 3 is another round of “I cannot resist things about Julius Caesar”, Nicolas Coustou’s statue. To my regular annoyance, this is one of the main portrayals of him (along with a Renaissance bust, a variety of variously well substantiated ancient busts, paintings, and a bronze that I am 95% sure is actually Octavian). It’s a very sweet sculpture and I love it a lot, but it also...irritates me on an existential level.

[antonio-m]

Auguste Rodin, The Age of Bronze, Bronze, brown, green and black patinated.

Auguste Rodin, 1840-1917, is considered one of the greatest artists in the history of sculpture. He is noted for several outstanding masterpieces, including: The Thinker, The Burghers of Calais, The Kiss and The Gates of Hell. He was influenced by the expressive and innovative sculptures of artists such as Bramante, Ghiberti and Michaelangelo. Rodin was unprecedented in his expression of the human body. He abandoned the polished and idealized figures of academic sculpture and produced rougher, more unfinished surfaces. Rodin’s figures are distinguished by their stunning realism. He wasn’t afraid to highlight the negative aspects of humanity. Rodin was able to depict love, passion and beauty with equal weight as fear, weakness and distress. His enduring popularity is evident by the numerous posthumous casts of his sculptures that continue to be made. Rodin's The Age of Bronze is the artist's earliest surviving life-size figure. The inspiration came from Michelangelo’s Dying Slave. The original title, The Vanquished, was influenced by the Franco-Prussian War from 1870 to 1871. Rodin decided to change the title to The Age of Bronze in order to try and distance the piece from the negative criticism it had received while being exhibited in Belgium. Critics accused Rodin of having used a life cast of his model, a Belgian Soldier named Auguste Neyt, instead of carving it by hand. Rodin had to prove that the quality of his sculpture’s modelling came from a thorough study of profiles. When the work was exhibited at the Salon of 1880, Rodin was awarded a third class medal. The Age of Bronze became one of Rodin’s most famous works, and also proved to be a commercial success. Casts of the work can be found in several museums around the world.

Repost from Jurgen Vermaire on Instagram. @lets_talk_about_art

[southsidemolly]

Stone Hard Men

The human body has always been an inspiration to artists. These beautiful sculptures are a prime example of intense study and replication of human anatomy

Antinuous by unknown scuptor. Marble sculpture created c 130bc. Delfi Museum, Greece

The Dying Slave by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni. Marble sculpture created between 1513 and 1516. Louvre, Paris

Bacchus by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni. Marble sculpture created between 1496 and 1497. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence

Hermes by unknown sculptor.  Greco-Roman marble statue C1st A.D. Pio-Clementino Museum, Vatican Museums

David-Apollo  by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni.  Unfinished marble sculpture, 1530.  Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence

[andavs]

Can we do two for the never have I ever? Artist!Derek or interior decorator!Stiles

You most certainly can do two!

Okay, artist!Derek...

I haven’t written anything, but at one point I started this drawing that was heavily inspired by Michelangelo’s Slaves statues, which if you don’t know, are pretty much all unfinished. Some are the full body, just a little rough and unrefined, and some are only partially sculpted from a marble block.

They’re fucking gorgeous because if there’s one thing Michelangelo could sculpt or paint well, it’s naked men.

So I started this drawing of Stiles kind half out of a marble block, and it never got close to being finished, but the vague kind of cracky idea I came up with along the way is that there’s some demon or artist spirit! And Stiles makes some dumb crack about art! So he gets turned into an unfinished marble statue and they have to finish the statue to free him, and surprise! Derek specializes in marble carving!

So it’s a weird kind of gay version of the Pygmalion story, but Stiles was real before and it’s significantly less creepy.

Because I’m pretty sure I was taking a class on the Italian Renaissance at the time. Or 19th century American art. There’s a lot of overlap with the classics there.

And interior decorator!Stiles, which is a new one as far as I know:

So Derek doesn’t know shit about color. Everything is pretty dark and fairly monochromatic, he doesn’t really care, he’s just going to get the really dark wood IKEA desk and the near-black sheets because they don’t show stains and he likes to eat in bed. He’s practical like that.

But then he moves for a promotion, and it’s a big city, and he can’t get away with his intensely private, pretty bland home life. He likes his field of work, but it requires a lot of networking and parties and showing off, and his good looks aren’t saving him anymore. The bosses all host singers and small orchestras in their perfectly decorated homes, and they’re dropping hints that he should be doing the same. Because they’re nosy as shit and dying to know about Derek Hale.

So he goes to Laura for help, because he has a nice apartment, but all that’s in it is a bed and a recliner by the one floor lamp. It’s not a hosting kind of space. It could be, but he’s hopeless when it comes to decorating. He doesn’t even have a rug.

But Laura comes to the rescue and she has Connections, one of which knows Stiles.

Stiles who sweeps into the apartment with a judgingly raised eyebrow and immediately starts rattling off furniture he’s going to have to buy to fill all the empty space, because seriously, there’s entire rooms of nothing, what are you even doing in here?

And there’s obviously a ton of arguing between them, and they have to go shopping together because Derek is very particular about his few pieces of furniture and he doesn’t want Stiles running off and buying garbage that he’ll hate.

But then it comes time to entertain, and he doesn’t know what to do with that either! But Stiles has connections, namely Lydia, and he doesn’t like parties but he can make one look great, and then Derek makes him come with, and they’re both being reluctantly social together, and bonding, and they both end up so overwhelmed with people and things that they run off to Derek’s bedroom together. It’s not supposed to be sexy, but it ends up that way, obviously, because they’re unreasonably attracted to each other by this point.

Obviously.

(Author Never Have I Ever)