-marc chagall
ROME. i'll spare you the full tour. too much to talk about. overall great weekend fully packed with art and history. not for a minute did we stop moving. and now we're home and happy to be back. we did rome. we did it proud. and now we're done.
picture every bit of historical knowledge you have about rome. we went there. we saw that. we walked and walked and walked. and while it was all very interesting, a few things touched me big time. like had a substantial impact on my life. so yes we saw the italian senate and the colosseum and the pantheon and hadrian's villa. we saw tons of things. but here's what i saw.
the vatican. i am by no means catholic and have minimal attachment to the pope. so mostly the vatican museum. art galore. it's one thing to see great paintings hung on walls. it's another to stand in awe of the school of athens and know raphael was standing in that same room hundreds of years ago envisioning that fresco. there is something in me that is awakened by art. i come alive. and although we were in the museum for almost 3 hours and everyone else was fed up and complaining about hurting feet, i couldn't get enough. every room we went into amazed me more and more. and finally we ended up in the sistene chapel. which actually looks little like i imagined despite the hundreds of textbook pictures i've seen. it's quite small and there is no beaming light shooting in from windows or soft humming of a choir. it's kind of dark and small and the officers are constantly yelling to be quiet and not take pictures. of course i did anyway but not in a hold-my-camera-above-my-head-flash kind of way. in a sneaky snapping-up-from-my-waist kind of way. so i have pictures. and i was by no means disappointed- we're talking about michelangelo here. but it was definitely different.
sneaky snaps of the sistene chapel
st. peter's basilica. kind of in the vatican? i'm not really sure. it's named st. peter's after peter. like jesus's disciple peter. his ashes are in the underground tombs. i did not take this fact lightly. at all. i found myself with a lump in my throat on more than one occasion during our tour of st. peter's. and if you know me- i don't cry. but if there's any history that's really gonna touch me deeply it's when i'm standing in the same room as the ashes of someone who knew jesus. talked to jesus. touched jesus. it all became real for me. or more real. later we saw peter's chains in a different church. more reality. and finally we passed by the jail that imprisoned peter AND paul. our tour guide briefly mentioned it but the few of us who truly cared about that fact were amazed. peter was really there. and paul. i love paul. i want to be like paul. and he was there. he died there. he wrote PHILIPPIANS from that jail cell. it all became real for me.
paul and peter's prison
peter's chains
peter's ashes
chagall. we had an optional visit to a new modern art museum currently showing a chagall exhibit. 27 people signed up for the visit and only 7 of us showed up. which was actually way more fun, we had the art teachers all to ourselves. i love chagall. i am amazed by renaissance painters and appreciate it completely but i'm more of a modern art girl. and let me tell you i realllly dig chagall. his art, his philosophy, his character. i just think he would have been a really cool guy to know. one of my favorite things to do is walk through art museums. i love the white walls and quiet environment and ability to amble around and get lost in an exhibit. i could do it all day. i do actually do it quite frequently. chagall was just such an alive man, so unconcerned with things of this world and so bent on just living. and i'd like to say we have that in common. but he just jumped the charts and is probably up there with some of my favorite painters of all time. maybe even top 5. that's a big deal.
we weren't allowed to take pictures inside soooo this is all i got
so rome. everything i'd hoped it would be. glad i'm not studying there but pleased with our weekend. i was definitely touched by some things. and just very appreciative. of everything.
and as my dear friend marc chagall would say...
"only love interests me, and i am only in contact with things that revolve around love."
No comments:
Post a Comment