HUM 225 Week 2

The legend of Medusa is at one time or another known by many people. Medusa is the lady that had a head full of serpents as hair. Legend has it that if any one were to look at her in the eyes that he or she would automatically turn into stone. The art work that I plan to do for this week is the bust of Medusa, which is now held in the capital museum of Rome, Italy. This piece was sculpted by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and was made out of marble.


If one would look at the bust, they would see a face that is both confused and sad. The emotion that is portrayed in this art work is such a powerful emotion, much more than was ever portrayed by a woman back in the time the piece was created. The legend behind the emotion is that Medusa almost scared herself. It is said that because of her serpent hair and the ugliness of her face she did not like what she saw at all. In fact, legend has it that she took a look in the mirror and saw the image of herself and this is the expression she had when this happened. If anybody would look at this bust, they could almost say that they could see this in her eyes and emotion, because of the detail that the Bernini put into this sculpture.

Not only is there the legend behind the emotion/expression of the bust of Medusa, but there is also a legend behind as to why there is a bust. The legend is that Romans would use this bust to scare off enemies and to stop them from entering the city. Because of the legend of the serpents and the look of death, people were highly afraid of the Medusa Bust. They thought that they too would turn into stone just by looking into her eyes. Not only was it used on the entrances but the image of Medusa was also placed on shields also trying to have the same effect: to create fear.



My second art work that I chose to do this week is the Capitoline She-wolf statue that is also located in the museum in Rome. This statue is bronze and stands about 75 cm high and 114cm long, and the artist is unknown however it is said that it was an Etruscan Society work with the two babies being added later.

This sculpture is the image of Rome and is the symbol for all it stands for because the two babies that are suckling on the She-wolf is Remus and Romulus which created Rome. The legend has it that when the two were born their father was overthrown by their uncle Amulius, which become angry on the birth of these two, ordered them to be thrown into the Tiber river. After going down the river in a basket, they were picked up by the wolf and began to be nursed by her. Thus is where the image of these two began.



After being raised by the she-wolf they were found by a Sheppard who took them in and continued to raise them. Then legend continues to explain that the two brothers split up and Romulus created the City of Rome and became the first king. This is why the symbol of this sculpture is so powerful to the city of Rome. This symbol is on shirts, team logos, and because of Mussolini, now there are replicas in “Roman“ cities across the world that were given as gifts.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitoline_Wolf

http://www.igougo.com/story-s1222865-Rome-The_Capitoline_She-Wolf_and_The_Origins_of_Rome.html

http://en.museicapitolini.org/museo/restauri/restauro_del_busto_di_medusa_di_gian_lorenzo_bernini

The Good and Bad of Rome

Rome has a quality that not many other places can offer. A quality that is so strong it can change people and how they act in any other situations. In the book, The Italians, this quality is explained by Luigi Barzini saying, “It made and still makes unwanted people feel wanted, unimportant people feel important, and purposeless people believe that the real way to live intelligently is to have no earnest purpose in life.” In this quote Barzini explains how Rome is so beautiful and could create so many awe moments, that this place can cause happiness in any one person. As I walk through the city of Roma, exploring all of the tourist spots, I receive the same emotion, but I can’t help but to feel something in contrast to this feeling. Rome is in fact a city that offers exhilaration and oppressiveness; Its landscape has the best views, but the buildings are filled with trash and graffiti, the city offers great ruins from its past empire, but the ruins gives access to picketers and crazy merchants to tourists, and finally its culture the most impressive to be seen and tasted, but with the great culture comes intense social laws.


Every day going in to Rome on the train, I receive the pleasure of seeing the best landscapes I have ever seen, but as I go closer toward the city I start seeing everything covered with trash and graffiti. The trees look so interesting because they are completely bare until the very top where they almost create the image of a straight tree line in the sky. Not only are the trees amazing, but the hills are completely covered in green with every so often the faint view of a town with the best architecture that I have ever seen. Every house is surrounded by a stone wall with a gate that lets the family in the house escape from the sounds that are protruded from the streets and enjoy the outside. The lake has the best color of blue that I have seen from any other lake, but with all of this beauty comes the look of trash. The terminal is covered with graffiti and trash and contains a smell from the trains that is least desirable. Small shops have their windows with products showing covered in graffiti and pieces of trash on the floor of the alleys that the shops are located on. Even the monuments which are great tourist sites have downfalls not only by trash but by the constant attack of being a tourist.

Every time I visit the monuments of Rome I feel a sense of awe and an uplifting. The monuments are so beautiful and impressive. The Appian Way was so impressive especially after hearing Rabbi Spitzer tell us about how the huge stones that are now filled with cracks and unleveled were once perfect and looked like one continuous piece. Not only was the first road that led into ancient Rome impressive, but the feeling that I receive every time I walk in or on one of the ruins is just beyond words. This was the same spot that history that we have been reading about all of our lives was made. This is the spot that the main characters of the most famous plays and stories stood, ate, talked and even died, and yet we have the honor of standing here and visiting and learning about them! This feeling does cause me to feel excited and enthusiastic but while at the sites I am also paranoid and I feel rushed and not as comfortable as I would in my hometown. This is because of the constant run into of the daily merchants that stand by all of the monuments that sometimes even sneak their items upon the tourists and then expect you to pay. If they are not sneaking something upon the people, then they are coming up to everyone asking them to buy awaiting the usual response of “no thanks” with the usual expression of annoyance. To go along with the merchants, the tourists have to worry about having their money or bus passes getting snatched up by the usual thieves that go around looking at pockets. This practice causes the people that are trying to enjoy their stay and see what Rome has to have worry all day long about their possessions and personal space.

Along with the monuments and the landscape Rome also has the best culture, such as food and daily practices, that I have seen, but Rome also carries a lot of social rules that could take a lot just to get used to. When I bite into any food that I have had so much I receive a sensation that is so different that I have ever tasted. As I have described to some other people the food almost has a “3d” taste which means that there is flavor upon flavor. In just one bite, any one person can taste so many flavors which I do not get the pleasure to receive in America. Along with the food, the practice of having food late at night and spending hours sitting during and after dinner is an experience beyond itself. When the students when into the city Friday night in campo del fiore, it was so nice to see all of the Italians to be outside at nine eating and just sitting on the patio and talking with a band or show by the fountain in the center of the city. I used to love walking at night when I was living at home during the summer, and this part of Rome just reminded me of the perfect summer night outside talking to family and friends, but with this almost perfect culture, there are a lot of social rules. Here in Italy, one must pay to use bathrooms or have a receipt from a local restaurant or other business which is usually only good for one hour. Not only does a person have to pay for the restroom, but when shopping the customer must not touch the item, but ask for assistance from the store clerk even when just looking at items. Also when purchasing items, one must use the lowest amount of euro as possible, if that person uses a high Euro, then the clerk will become very annoyed.

In all, Rome is a very exotic and inspiring city that can uplift any one. Rome is the city that even though it has its negatives it still has everything that people could ask for. It offers beaches, beauty, nice weather, beautiful people, shopping for the girls, bars for the younger crowd, ruins for the tourists or history buffs, and graffiti for the modern art type of people. I guess to answer the question of why does the city have so much trash, graffiti, theft, annoying merchants, and social laws; we all must look at our own cities. Every city pretty much has all of those negatives, just maybe not as extreme as Rome, but some could be worse than Rome. The question that I leave every one with is: what could we do as citizens of our city or tourists of Rome to change the negatives and get rid of them to allow for as much positives as possible?

HUM 225: Art and Culture of Rome Week 1

The artifact that I chose to write my first art piece journal on is the Obelisk which was used by The Romans as markers for the pioneers to get to the center of the city. The location of the Obelisk is in the center of the Piazza del Popolo and is about 75 feet tall weighing about 263 tons.

The Obelisks of Rome have served many purposes and have seen a lot of history not only in Rome but also Egypt. There really is no recorded artist because of how and when it was built, but it was sponsored by Ramses II, an Egyptian pharos that was known for his highly wealthy life and strong militia. Ramses II built many structures and was always looking to expand his kingdom. One of the ways that Ramses II thought would expand his kingdom was to continue to build great monuments and tombs. In fact, he wanted to build monuments that would “reach towards the stars.” The Obelisk that now sits in the Piazza del Popolo was built based on this idea, but the present Obelisk has changed since its creation.

After the Romans conquered the land and brought back with them the Obelisk. This piece was erected in the Piazza del Popolo and received new additions. The Obelisk was fixed and received new inscriptions, “Sixtus V ordered this miserably broken and overturned obelisk to be excavated, transferred, and restored, and dedicated to the invincible Cross in the year 1589, the fourth of his Pontificate.” (http://webpages.csus.edu/~sac90717/Sites/FlaminianObelisk.html) Not only was the new inscription made, but a fountain was added to the base of the obelisk of two Egyptian lions. Now the obelisks are only used as art and as an example of great history to both Romans and tourists.

The second piece that I chose to write my blog on is the Assumption of Mary painted by Daniele da Volterra. This painting is located in the Piazza del Popolo in the Trinita dei Monti and covers the inside of a side chapel of the building.

Because of the time that Daniele Da Volterra lived, his art had huge inspirations from the renaissance era and followed the same pattern as Michelangelo. In fact, after moving to Rome, Daniele became friends with Michelangelo working with him to learn receiving work. During this time, Michelangelo would ask the Pope to hire Daniele as an artist to paint some of Rome’s most beautiful artwork. (Wikipedia.com)(wga.hu).

Even after Michelangelo’s death, Daniele Da Volterra continued to work for the Pope. He was hired as the superintendent and asked to finish many art works that needed to be done such as putting loin clothes of nude sculptures that were made by Michelangelo. As you can see from the picture or if anyone would just walk into the chapel, Michelangelo did have a huge impact on Daniele Da Volterra, and that the artwork done by him is very similar to the artwork of Michelangelo.

HUM 325: JOURNAL 1; WEEK 1

Rome is by far the city of history, passion, art, and life, and in order to properly view all that Rome has to offer one cannot be the normal “paralyzed” person. Instead, a person has to view the monument or ruin and analyze that piece. This method will provide that said person to fully understand the beauty and the purpose of the object that is located in Rome. This process can be completed by either analyzing the piece, reflecting on the piece, or just considering the piece in any other form a person chooses in order to understand the art behind the object. After listening to Rabbi Spitzer in class and learning this process, I was able to think about what this new way of looking at the ruins and how it would affect my understanding of everything. After arriving in the city, I was able to realize just how important this was and to properly begin to understand just what Rome had to offer!

On our first trip into the city, we had the chance to view one of the most well known ruins: The Coliseum! This piece was beyond beautiful and was just astonishing. To just think about how Romans could build such a enormous piece with so much detail was beyond me. Before discussing about the new process that we learned in class earlier that day, I would have just stood there with the paralyzed expression of “Wow!” but now I know that that is the wrong way to look at things. The early morning class taught me to analyze the coliseum and reflect on what I was seeing, and because of this I was able to understand it better. When I saw the coliseum I tried to view what the coliseum looked like before, which was really easy after Laura (the tour guide) showed us her very helpful flip book which contained the picture of the coliseum now and how it looked like in ancient Rome. The coliseum, though, has been through so much destruction throughout the years, and it just astonishes me to think that people could do this to their own history.

Every day we hear people telling us that we have to preserve the past and present for our future generations. That we must take care of what we have so that everyone else can have these possessions as well, but it is evident that the latter Romans did not have that same understanding. Almost every crevice of the Coliseum is striped and now missing the marble that once covered the beautiful stadium. There are holes in every wall left by people digging away at the structure in order to obtain the marble. In order to understand why people have done this to their prized artifact, I must consider what Rabbi Spitzer said: They recycled their history and just transformed those pieces into new ideas new structures for future generations. As we continue to think about the Coliseum I tried to understand this way of thinking and applied it to other visits. Recycling came extremely evident when we toured the Roman forum because of the many changes that it has had to the city.

The Roman forum, which was the center of the Roman republic, was once covered by dirt, but now stands for everyone to view and to enjoy, and there is still a lot of the city that is uncovered just waiting to be viewed by future generations. This city did not go through as much destruction as the coliseum did, but it did have a lot changes that was done by generations following the fall of the Roman Empire. There is now a door in the chapel that was once not there and marks from rope that was used to try to pull the columns down in order to preserve them. Also, on top of the Temple which was once a house of a pagan emperor, now held a Christian cross. It was just a neat experience to be able to view the center of the well known Julius Caesar and to be able to compare and contrast original ideas about the place that we have learned through stories and books about ancient Rome. As I was touring the Forum I tried to imagine the different armies marching through the sacred walkway down the center celebrating their recent victory with the people and the senate. I tried to imagine the Senate standing up in the speaking corner and greeting the people and informing them of recent changes or news of the Republic. As I walked through the forum I could not help but to think about the reason of changing artifacts and taking them apart. Is it because each generation needs to write a little bit of their history? Does “recycling” give us access to change and make our mark on the land as the people before us and to allow the future generations to imagine and think about how we lived?

When I consider this idea of recycling, I begin to think of our own artifacts back in America. Is this what is going to happen to the Statue of Liberty or to the monuments in Washington, D.C. Are we just going to strip away their beauty on the outside and just let the history present their inner beauty? As I start thinking about this idea, I consider the idea that maybe America will someday have what Rome has. We will have Ruins that once were great and useful, but has gone through many generations, seeing many historical events, and then being recycled into new generations and their ways of life and culture. This process may destroy past ruins, but it also may bring about new opportunities and new stories that can be told to the future students that will one day read about our reign in time. If this idea is true than should we all start changing the present? Should we start re-building and leaving our story for others? My answer is yes. We need to present the future generations of this world with our story and our purpose for life. Show them our mistakes, our success, and help guide them on how to live their own lives just like how the Romans have shown us.