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Traveling Through Time in my Bathtub...
My days are full. Waking up at 4:30 in the morning and working a full eight hours before coming home to my house full of young boys and taking care of them. At the end of a long day, I usually like to relax in a warm bubble bath surrounded by candles. Last Friday night, as I was enjoying my end of the week relaxation time, I found myself drifting deep into dreamland.
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I awoke, in cold bathwater, deep in Sicily. What was I going to do, I was naked! After quickly donning a toga, I was finally interested in seeing the sites and people around the city. As I walked around, I saw many people working the land, trying to make sure enough food is grown to provide for the entire year. Both peasants and lords worked together, finally resting from the labors, celebrating with church feasts and occasions.
On the street corner, I saw a group of commoners gathered around an easel. Hurrying over to check it out, I saw the visual art piece included below, “Praying Hands.” The artist created this piece of artwork to express the sincerity and devotion of praying to a Heaven Father, regardless of religious preference. Many of the observers that were admiring the artwork alongside me did not have any information about the whereabouts of this piece of beautiful and serene artwork. I could tell that this piece was made through sketching and shading on a canvas background. “Praying Hands” shows both the lords and the commoners the importance of showing the Gods their appreciation.
Many of the people walking through the streets with me were very melancholy and seemed to be sad. As I asked how they were doing, many told me of the family members and struggles that they had to endure through the Medieval Times, which were rife with Plagues and death. Instead of turning away from the Gods, many people became more religious and pious, which was truly represented in the portrait of “Praying Hands.” Street corners and gathering places were packed with traveling merchants and returning crusades telling anyone who would listen to stories of travels to Asia, the Middle East and Africa. These new stories told of adventures and lands of new learning about the earth and the human body. As I looked around the city, I saw many art pieces that were religious in nature. As I looked closer at “Praying Hands” I thought of how this art piece would still be valued in modern-day cultures because it portrays the never ending presence of Gods in our lives and reminds us of the power of prayer. After a long day of walking and looking at these beautiful art pieces, I finally fell asleep in a peasants’ home.
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Rocking back and forth, I finally awoke in a boat. After asking the captain and crew I found out I was on my way to Italy. Upon arrival, I was thrust into the hustle and bustle of cultural and intellectual creativity. The Italian Renaissance had arrived. As I walked around, talking to people I met on the street, I found that many people did not agree with the medieval civilization anymore. More concerned with the physical world, including the body and humanism, artists reflected this in all facets of the society. Leonardo DiVinci sketched a piece of artwork that was so proportionally correct and anatomically accurate portraying the human body for what it is.
The purpose of this piece was to show the human body, flaws included. I met a man in a toga, named Jacob Burckhardt, on the street and asked him what his take on the “Vitruvian Man” was. He said that “man was conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family, or corporation – only through some general category.”
This piece of artwork was made as a simple sketch, from the great artist Leonardo DiVinci. He was studying the human body, many times by collecting deceased bodies illegally from the graveyards and taking extreme measurements on them. As he averaged all of these lengths out, in his genius he discovered similarities between all different humans. Leonardo DiVinci was not satisfied by simply creating artwork that was more pleasing to the eye. He desired to show the true nature of human beings, including their faults. The culture was consumed with attempting to learn as much as possible about how human beings think, work, and basically continue to live. Many of these aspects that I was witnessing on the street seemed to be a continuation and follow through of the ideas set forth in the previous age.
As I listened to intellectuals discuss the “Vitruvian Man” I found out that this art piece showed the importance of humanism in the current culture. Other artwork pieces around me also were based upon seeing the true nature of humans and life in general. The “Vitruvian Man” is an amazing testament of how intellectual and intrinsic the artists of the day were.
It has been such a long hard day, crazy and busy, searching all the nooks and crannies throughout Italy in search of the next great artist. A family, living in poverty, so kindly invited me to dinner and to spend the night with them, I was obliged to accept their generous offer of friendship, and after a filling dinner, I fell promptly asleep.
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Waking up with the twisting and the steady bumps felt only while riding on horseback, I opened my eyes to witness myself crossing the border from Italy to Northern Europe. Upon entering the city, I quickly spotted the center of art. A beautiful profile portrait was being created.
Even after asking around, I was unable to find out the artists’ name or location. The painting is a simple yet elegant profile of Matteo Olivieri. This beautifully colored and richly lavish painting was apparently being commissioned through Matteo’s son, Michele, who also had a painting completed. I thought it was mildly strange that Matteo appeared to be a young man, the same as the portrait created by his son, who by best estimations was at least 65 years old at the time of the setting. The observers informed me that many of these types of portraits were created as commemorations of their dead family member, wishing to remember them in health rather than in failing health. One comment I overheard from the art critic Alberti was that a portrait “like friendship can make an absent man seem present and a dead one seem alive.”
The portrait was created by using vibrant colors on a canvas. The artwork reveals the artistic views and power based laws of the renaissance ages. Many of the artworks surrounding us were independent portraits of individuals and their accomplishments, along with fame. This type of artwork that portrayed even the common people was becoming more commonplace and showed us the desires of the people were switching from religious consciousness to personal choices and popularity to overrule the lifestyle and traditions. After more walking and talking to individual residents of Northern Europe, I spotted a shady spot underneath a tree of lilacs and drifted into sleep.
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Muffled knocks on the door, slowly waking up and coming out of sleep, I came out of my fog and realized that I was back in my bathroom in the bathtub. The candles had burnt out and I was freezing cold from the cooled water. As I got out and began drying off, I pondered the different situations and cultures that I had just visited. I had learned about three very distinct, yet closely related cultures, all of which have given us beautiful and lasting impressions into their worlds and daily lives.
(I have not included the references from where I got the information used in this paper, but there were many!)
2 comments:
Bravo! That was really cool. The movement between plot and content was very seamless. Now that's how a paper's done. :)
Oh, that's so sweet of you to say! I was inspired by sitting at your kitchen table with the best people in the world!
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