The Uffizi Gallery, Florence
The next morning, we ate a buffet breakfast at the
hotel’s 4th floor with a
spacious terrace dining area. The best part about this breakfast was the
provision of a variety of fruits for guests to choose from freshly squeezed orange juice. The juice was made by an orange juice making machine from which we
merely pressed a button and an orange would be dropped and cut into halves and fresh juices came out
to the glass placed below. It was great to have fresh squeezed orange juice
first thing in the morning. No wonder nobody complained about the other minor
inconveniences at the hotel.
The hotel concierge printed out our emailed copy of tickets
which we purchased online back in Canada for the Uffizi Gallery English Guided
Tour. Good thing the tour started at 3:30pm so it gave us a lot of time to
first explore the city a bit on our own.
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| One of the Musicians Performing Outside Uffizi Gallery |
The walk from our hotel to the Uffizi Gallery was about 10-
15 minutes. We knew that we reached an artsy place when we heard classical
music before we reached the place. There were musicians playing classical
instruments on the street; some painters
were painting portraits for customers and a few more were displaying their
artwork right in front of the gallery. We could feel the spirit of arts in the air.
The English tour we signed up was at 3:30p.m. We still had
to line up even though it said with this tour we could skip the line. We
followed our guide to the Gallery, which housed a collection of large number of
paintings dated from the late Medieval to late Renaissance period.
It was interesting to learn that the Medici
family was the ruling, very rich and
influential family in Florence. The
Gallery was willed by the last Medici to the City of Florence. The ruling family after the Medici’s had
Austrian/German influence and organized
the artworks meticulously by time period and type.
We learned that the pre-renaissance paintings had to be strictly religious and had to follow the Byzantine iconographic rules in creating the paintings.
I was wondering why were there so many paintings related to church. Now I know. All these paintings depicted ether the Madonna and the Christ Child or the Virgin Mary or Jesus by themselves, or the saints.
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| Artists displaying and selling their art outside the gallery |
We learned that the pre-renaissance paintings had to be strictly religious and had to follow the Byzantine iconographic rules in creating the paintings.
I was wondering why were there so many paintings related to church. Now I know. All these paintings depicted ether the Madonna and the Christ Child or the Virgin Mary or Jesus by themselves, or the saints.
When
we came to the section of paintings when renaissance period began, we could see that painters stared to move away from iconic painting methods and experimented with perspectives and shades. They also added ancient Greco Roman methods of realism onto their paintings.
The tour was very informational and we felt that we could earn a credit in Art History 101 after the tour.
Looking back, this tour gave us the tool to appreciate the
fresco paintings at the Basilica San Francisco in Assisi where we also visited
on this European trip.
S.& R.T. Our Second Day in Florence, Italy
Aug. 2012
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