Art is Everything Everywhere All at once in Terrific Tuscany

On Piazzale Michelangelo, the Duomo seemed ripe for picking!

Bienvenue and welcome back to Musée Musings, your idiosyncratic guide to Paris and art. This week reporting from Tuscany - well mostly Florence with a little bit of Siena and Pisa. When I first started visiting Tuscany with my husband, we always rented a car. Our modus operandi was to see three hill towns a day. We would wake up in one - where we had eaten dinner the night before. After breakfast, we would stroll around a bit. Then we’d drive to the next town for lunch and the afternoon. We would hit our third destination at the end of the afternoon, early evening really, just before dinner. We would keep that schedule for about a week. We never ran out of hill towns, I always knew of a painting in a church one place, a scene that I wanted to see that an 18th century English artist had painted at another or a 19th century American artist had captured for all eternity at a third. My husband loved to drive. We got from one place to another with maps to guide us and me to read highway signs as we passed them on the Autostrade. But he’s gone now and I hate to drive. Ginevra didn’t inherit the ‘happy behind the wheel’ gene. So we take city vacations. And when we go from place to place, it’s mostly by bus or train.

One of the nice things about Italy - besides the gelato - and we found some wonderful gelato in both Florence and Pisa this week - is the intercity buses and regional trains. Train stations haven’t become restaurants and buses go where the trains don’t or sometimes do, just in less time. Which is how we got to Siena and Pisa and how we are getting to Milan tomorrow. This is what I wanted to do in Siena: see (for the umpteenth time) the Allegory of Good and Bad Government frescoes by the Lorenzetti brothers in the Palazzo Pubblico. And buy enough panforte for a serious taste test. Thank goodness there were lots of places to buy panforte because the room of the frescoes was ‘chiusa per restauro’. Ginevra wanted to hang out on the Campo and take photos of the Cathedral. When we first got there, it was so hot we couldn’t really enjoy the Campo. Then a sudden and ferocious thunderstorm made it too cold to linger. Like I said, thank goodness for panforte. Pisa was perfect - all we wanted to do was hang around outside with the crowds taking pictures of each other and themselves holding up the leaning tower. Thanks to our efforts and those of others who were in Pisa that day, I am happy to report that the tower is still standing.

Gelatos from Edouardo - organic, natural, cones made to order

It was a cold and stormy day in Siena

Just a little to the left

A steadier hand was necessary to get the job done, of course!

We hadn’t been to Florence in probably a decade and there were lots of ‘old friends’ we were looking forward to seeing again. Our first day here, we were at the Uffizi, of course. How could it have been otherwise. Ginevra was both overwhelmed and disappointed. She has been incorporating Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Primavera into her work for years now. Studying the patterns of the hair, the movements of the hands, the poses of Venus and the Three Graces. And then, there it was, the painting in all its glory, except under glass, glass that reflects and distorts. The whole afternoon, she was either suffering from Stendhal syndrome, that is, overwhelmed by all the beauty. Or disappointed, because nothing is as good as you remember it, as you see it in your mind’s eye. Sometimes everything all at once.

The Venus Pudica pose

Another day, the Bargello in the morning - to see Michelangelo’s Bacchus and Giovanni da Bologna’s turkey. And of course, the statues of David by Verrochio and Donatello. Great preparation for Michelangelo’s David at the Academia later in the day. Which was itself great preparation for the Medici Chapel and Michelangelo’s Dawn and Dusk and Night and Day later in the week.

Donatello’s David - what can you say about a guy who leaves his hat and boots on?

She’s found the perfect angle

Michelangelo’s Medici Chapel, here a detail of Night with Giuliano de Lorenzo de Medici, a man of action about to rise from his seat

Masaccio’s Tribute Money is being restored. But unlike the Allegory of Good and Bad Government in Siena, it wasn’t closed. We walked up scaffolding and around it, too. Not alone, but in a small group of 10, accompanied by an escort. He was there to protect us but mostly to protect the frescoes from us. He wasn’t a guide but he did point out one thing, first in Italian and then in English. About Eve’s body. In retrospect, it seemed wildly inappropriate, but I have decided that it was just wacky and a little bit wonderful.

Masaccio’s Tribute Money, at right St. Peter pays the tax collector

I’ll tell you more about the living art history museum that is Florence when I get back from Milan next week. In the meantime, here’s a link to a post I wrote about the Leonardo exhibition at the Louvre. Leonardo: from lad to legend A blockbuster that would have been a bust if it had been scheduled to open a few months later. As it turned out, it made it just in time, just before the pandemic shut everything down for a couple years. Hopefully the post will get you into the Italian Renaissance mood. Gros bisous, Dr. ‘B.’

Comments from last week, for which I am very grateful!

New comment on paris potpourri: You have so much fun, you two! Reading about it puts a smile on my face. Merci!, from Pieter, Amsterdam

New comment on Mondrians and Madeleines: How much I love this article! Merci. I have forwarded to my friends who love fashion or to whom I have taken to visit the Yves St. Laurent, the Dior museum or Palais Galliera, Brenda, Paris

New Comment on Mondrians and Madeleines:

I love learning art, history, culture, style, and thought from you. Your words are a gift to your readers!

Clothing as art is now part of Indiana University’s School of Art, Architecture + Design. 

https://eskenazi.indiana.edu/exhibitions/sage-collection/index.html

And thanks to Glenn Close donating her collection, a fabulous exhibit was recently held at the Eskenazi Museum. 

https://eskenazi.indiana.edu/exhibitions/sage-collection/upcoming/20-art-of-character.html

As always, thank you for posts. And for wandering around Paris, and the food, and for Ginevra! Elaine, Indiana