European Update

Hello Folks!

Just throwing you all a weary update from lovely Florence (or as the Italians say "Firenze"). I am exhausted but content! I have some time to blog while I wait for my clothes to dry. Italian washers and driers seems to take forever in my humble opinion, and I spent many a college day at the laundry mat. I started laundry around 11pm, it is now 1am.

So I left London today and spent my last morning visiting the Tate Modern Museum, right on London Southbank. Many argue that this museum is the best Modern Art museum in the world, and I have to say it's the best I have seen, so far...

I was only able to spend about an hour browsing its permanent collection and found many things suprising! 1) I could actually understand the written statements provided next the artwork...something especially extraordinary when it comes to Modern Art. Sometimes I read statements at modern art museums and I am at a complete lost or just get bored about half-way. Good job Tate Modern curators! I wouldn't have reseravtions about letting my high school art students explore the museum on their own without some sort of prep. 2) They organized their permanent collection not necessarily by movements but more by relations...so in one gallery I saw a 1930 Diego Rivera painting and the next to it a painting by a more contemporary artist (1990's), whose name I cannot remember (all my notes are put away right now :o( . But what caught my eye was how they drew a relation between Claude Monet's Impressionism to Abstract Expressionism. I always thought of Impressionism as the first concrete step or deviation from classical art to modern art, but to learn of how Absract Expressionists of the 1940's took from Monet's work just impressed me. Sometimes I want to see Modern Art as just one whole big event; each style, each movement taking and giving from one another. I sometimes have to wonder where art is going now and where will it be in the future. Will there be another "modern art" that will push the limits of our perceptions, something beyond what we could even imagine. I find it difficult to belive Michelangelo or DaVinci could have imagined the world of our contemporary art...so where is Art to go in the the future?

Well now being in Florence, obviously much of the art has to do with the past, that being Italian Renaissance. Did you know each town-region had its own renaissance with its own styles? Oh yeah...Michelangelo was like Florentine Renaissance will kick Venetian Renaissance butt anyday! And then Titian would be like all, nu-uh. lol. Well I am sure their criticisms where much more elaborate and articulate than that. Right now I am right in the craddle of it all, where it started. My hostel is only a stone throw's from Il Duomo, the famous cathedral! Everytime I see it, I can't help but feel outstanded. It is just so impressive and beautiful.

I just got here tonight so there isn't much I have done yet. In my next post I will try to cover Florence and Rome. There is much to learn and see and very little time! But apparently, the Italian drier I am using thinks I have loads of time.

Ciao!

Mayra