Winding up - the last week in Rome

(you think that means it's over, but really there are still posts to come with backlog from Pienza, Siena and Florence...)

I have now been back from Rome for over six months. The feeling of being there, with so much art and so much history and, contradicting that, so much sheer here-and-now life whirling all around me still has yet to fade. Some days, when life in Melbourne is failing to inspire, the month away starts to feel like a bit of a dream, but then I sit down with a Rome-buddy or two, discuss the altar paintings at Chiesa Nuova or the pavement at the Campidoglio and --hey presto-- it's like we were there only yesterday. But reminisce all I like, the Rome chapter has now well and truly closed for me: results are in and technically I am no longer enrolled in the subject at all. This slightly sad note does have a happy ending: my grade for all the Rome assignments was better than I ever could have expected, and means my plan to do honors in art history in 2010 is coming along very nicely. My intended thesis topic is (literally) centuries away from all the Renaissance and Baroque art I was studying in Rome...but geographically it isn't that far off at all - I plan to write on Futurism, an early twentieth century avant garde movement, started (of course) in Italy. My love of Futurism deserves more than a fleeting mention at the bottom of a set of photos, so rather than explaining it here, I promise to devote an entire post to Marinetti and his merry men in the near future.

Well overdue...

Highlights of week three in Rome -- now over sixth months ago, eeps -- included:

- the Baroque art nerd's holy grail, Caravaggio's St Matthew's chapel in San Luigi dei Francesi

- a compare and contrast of Rome's two main Oratorian edifices - the early Baroque Chiesa Nuova, and Borromini's flowing, dynamic facade for the neighbouring Oratory of the Filipini

- a behind the scenes tour of the Quirinal Palace - opulence central, once the Papal summer residence and now the private residence of the President of the Italian republic. Once we had seen the ballroom at the Quirinal Palace, no ballroom stood a chance of impressing us again

- a whistlestop trip around Rome's stational churches, including the vast Santa Maria Maggiore, and the stylistically disjointed San Giovanni in Laterano

- a rainy dinner in the backstreets around Piazza Navona.

Still to come: photo highlights from the fourth and final week in Rome, plus trips around Lazio, and the final Italian week in Siena and Florence. Whew. I am looking forward to being done with these Italian photoposts -- as nice as it is to reminisce, it's about time for some pics of what's happening in the here and now! Soon; soon I say.

Veni Vidi Vici (AKA Ancient Rome nerdery)

Centurions and the like by Nomade via Wooster Collective. These have popped up in NY, LA & San Francisco, and I think they are all kinds of awesome.

A long awaited update

It has been a fair while since I last posted here. Too long, in fact. The absence is justified though: I have been grinding out the last two assesments for my Rome subject. The past few weeks have been consumed by this:

And this:

Respectively, an experiential analysis of Michelangelo's Campidoglio, which the more I write about, the more I love; and a comparison of the patronage programs of two Counter Reformation orders: the Jesuits and the Oratorians, which I loved to start with, but now never want to think about again. Suffice to say, I am pleased to be finished. Now to fill my newfound freedom with all things creative rather than just crashing on the couch after work. Ah yes, that is the challenge.

Oh, and by the by, yes I was snowed under, but not so snowed under that I couldn't find time to go to the NGV. This time we investigated a part of the gallery I have spent relatively little time in: the asian collection. The NGV has on at the moment an exhibition of the robes of Imperial China. Fasinating, visual overload, a techinical feast, need I say more. Well there was more: the whole sociocultural angle of how the roles of members of court helped shape the clothing styles they wore. It was fantastic. My little camera struggled to cope with the low lighting, but the red of the walls showed up beautifully, so not all is lost on the photo front.

In closing, I guess I can only promise to be more diligent with posting, what with having no excuse not to! I will do my best.

Rome backlog: a very photogenic Saturday

More Rome backlog

Villa Madama, plus a bit of a windowshop in the Piazza di Spagna area.