Friday, June 14, 2013

Michelangelo's Greatest Work

On the fifteenth, we went to the open Wednesday mass at the Vatican and watched the Pople give mass (that's a whole different story!) and then later that day Liz Lev, our outstanding art history teacher, took us on a tour of the Vatican Museums. If anyone was to take us to the museums, she is absolutely the best person. It was adorable to see how excited she was to take us around! Anyways, we walked around and saw a lot of ancient Christian artwork and alter pieces. It was really cool to see their evolution and how they have changed over the past 2000 years. We were finally on our way to the most amazing piece of artwork in the museums, The Sistine Chapel. This is considered Michelangelo's greatest work, and possibly one of the greatest pieces of artwork in the world. Lev gave us the run down of what each panel meant, and what important things to look for. We were however not able to take pictures in this chapel.

We went inside, and honestly, it was a lot smaller and darker than I expected. I thought it would be this huge grand thing, but maybe the smaller scale was a great venue for such a memorable piece of artwork  There was a lot of people there, but I felt like I was the only one there. The artwork there was so incredibly breathtaking. It was probably one of the best experience so far here in Rome. I was able to find a seat and just look at the fresco. I ended up sitting down and starting for almost 20 minutes, but it felt like one minute. I could stay there all day and look at this ceiling. Just looking at the beauty of this piece, knowing the story behind it, what each panel means, how Michelangelo tirelessly worked for years, made me tear up a bit. I felt so incredibly blessed to be in such a great place. It made me realize that I am so insanely lucky and humbled by this experience.

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