sketch and distraction

 


after all that, tony and i split off from the group to sketch the colusseum in the lovely weather. and i will talk more about it later, it's blizzarding snow slowly outside the studio window and i want to walk in the lovely paris snow... typed a lot today.

hmm so anyway, grabbed some pasta at an unremarkable little restaurant next to the hostel, unremarkable except the entranceway was doing a chinup onto the street - the steps started down without a pause - the streets keep jumping up here, all the ruins are significantly (20 feet or so) below grade. wierd wait staff kept correcting our placement of glasses etc... wierd... americans made themselves unescapable all over in rome, particularly at meals... waiter offered "special creme, healing" for my head, offered to put it on himself if i came by at noon the next day hehe... walked back to the ruins with the intention of sketching in the dark, it started raining just as we were about to set up though. the ruins were cool and less creepy then i might have thought during the day.

 

Rome 1 - Tue 21 Feb

 


Great day... waking up after solid nap on train to Roman suburbs, taxi to get to the meeting point on time for a walking tour with a Cornell professor who truely owned his voice - fabulous story-teller, a little deliberate and uptight about the rain, but overly knowledgable and introduced me to several words i'd been afraid to say outloud due to pronounciation scares...

was introduced to Baroque churches through Il Gesu, Santa Maria Alochini (spelling?), St Ignatious, Sant'Ivo from the courtyard.... Il Gesu was rightly published as the most florid of them, beautiful though, painting ambiguously floating above/under the ceiling... incredibly convincing. i wasn't as overwhelmed and almost disgusted by the amount of ornaments as i thought i would be, it was definately all to an effect and there still was obviously solid structure behind it so it wasn't disturbing in that effect. the heaviness of the decoration was an interesting emotional/mental pressure, and almost freeing after the mentally-invoking only icons and stained glass symbolism of the previous styles.

also saw the Pantheon (underwhelming, they cleaned the ceiling of it's brooding mystery and polished it into a graphic arts exercise... huge beautiful space though), Palazzo Nuevo, and Bramante's courtyard in San Maria de la Pace. Jeffery gone, Randy lead us past the Coluseum to a little church, San Clemente, that had been built on top of the previous two churches, leaving them intact to 30 feet below grade and the first centure AD... pretty amazing, again the italian screw explaining attitude made it pretty unfufilling intelectually. 

finishing off florence...

 

oh beautiful.... sun started setting and turning everything even more golden... sigh... back to the duomo to hook back up with tony, he had fortunately gotten the message... (our cell phones hadn't been working, felt so odd to leave a real note pinned to the door in hopes that he'd wander back and find it...) another supurb supper after much wandering to find a cheaper part of town, found some very parisian arches and roundabouts, eventually food too... bed and early rising for the train to rome... 

ponte veccio sketching

 


and the river did this.... wee sketching, fun sketch to make. even more beautiful in real life, might have to spoil the sketch by inclding a picture. this is ponte veccio, lined with jewelers shops, really seems to be the only bridge left that still has shops and homes along it, all the others have fallen down or sensible been cleared... i'm glad this one wasn't. 

wanderings...

 

much wandering... florence is getting long-winded (she finally noticed?). train station to the (closed) medici palace and chapel, retraced steps from night before through by santa croce, less shady in the light, leatherworking district, fantastic smells... across the river to the "less touristy" part of town, palazzos, cool other building types, clearing sky took a lot of my attention... lovely wandering, mellow, picture captures mood pretty well, raining then not and random sun... ate pizza on the dry sidewalk in the picture to wait out the rain... got back to the river and was WAY enthralled by what the sky was doing, with the water, and the views, and the 

Drenchpounded!

 

walk was pretty spectacular - shivery lonely-beautiful... powerful clouds over the valley, watched and heard a huge storm come towards the hill... the dark cypress trees there are amazing, walked down some really obscure little paths, grass roads and olive orchards, view ever-present except behind some walled wanderings... i did have the guidebook map and knew i wasn't trespassing....

final huge drenchpour of a hailing storm hit... huzzah relatively sturdy cheap vendor umbrella from spain... fun to see the landscaped fuzzed out and feel secure in my ever-so-prepared and grown up bubble... still had to splash in the puddles, it was unavoidable anyway and i was waiting for the bus... 

Ruins finally! Monday 20 Feb

 


rode the bus up to Firesole in the morning, a little suburb up above Florence... very fun to be able to give directions in the z-dimension... bus ride was intense, sweeping views of the city and countryside....

fun gelato for breakfast.... ha i had left that out? yes 3 stops for gelato on sunday, and monday... exquisite stuff... like ice cream but just the right amount lighter somehow... melts like bliss..... mmmmmmmmm hard to overstate how good it is. did like the gelato i got in florence better then rome's though.

ruins were confusing to get into, had an excellent time wandering and absorbing the stadium overlooking the vally, some roman baths and an etruscan temple... turned out i totally had the purposes switched, italian sight-labeling leaves much to your own interpretation... still fun. communication snafu and tony seemed to have disappeared, took the opportunity to really sink into the ruins while waiting, finally started walking down the hill... 

Marble Perfection.

 


found our way laboriously too the Gallerie d'Acadamia for our chance at the David.... he was totally worth it and the grotesque lines and crowds...

ugh... florence lives only for it's tourists. it was very hard to find a section of town that felt totally occupied, or restaurants that didn't cater to tourists. and this really isn't high tourist season, i can't imagine going during high season. I thought it was quite warm enough (well... close enough... hands still freeze sketching...) and already crowded enough to be less enchanting then it could be. not very healthy, but i guess i can't see less people coming in in the future... until the blizzard of identical digital pictures all gets put on the internet and you can see every concievable angle of every concievable thing to look at, the maybe people will just sit at home. thinking on the subject throughout the week - hard to see too much value in some of these pictures, even the ones i take...

anyway... galleries had a lot of art that would have been more exciting had i known more about iconography and the religious art of the period (i was also kind of pretending i didn't to push through to the michalangelo statues) some interesting old harpsichords and pianos - then the real gallery - the place used to be a sculpting school, so these were there for the students to study - the David amazingly, and then the unfinished works tortuously pushing their way out of crude blocks of stone - so amazing to see the strokes of the work and different stages of roughed-out to polished statues. of course it was better when it was finished. had a good time sketching, blah blah blah fill in something about human perfection for yourself, it applies. he was also huge - 15 feet high... honestly his hands and feet and head seemed a little out of scale, but the angle it was seen at and just how ungodly perfect the balence and pose and expression and impression was made it not matter in the slightest - it was obviously deliberate. he was also huge - 15 feet high... how amazing an artist to know when to take that liberty.

the student thesis-pieces were all cluttered together in a side room - rather creepy busts all up the walls and big pieces in the middle - all variously good or bad, to have them together like that really forced the comparison. sculpture really seems to stand better on it's own....

fun night wandering by santa croce, past the only shady abandoned piazza in the city apparently, a random smiley face balloon shoving itself under a car wheel, creepy symbolism... finally a fun looking but cheap restaurant, split creamy gnocci and a steak (guidebook says: you have to try the HUGE florentine steaks! split them with someone! beth says: they're quite good if you feel like steak, on a par with good steaks here but not too much more incredible. and be selfish, they aren't THAT big... save your stomach for the PASTAS!) ha... and cheap wine... in a jug... distrust jugs, we got a liter, and i would not have guessed visually the volume in it to be 4/3s that of a bottle of wine. excellent conversation and meal..... a very good night, topped by a long walk back and a night cap at a small bar... better wine this time.... 

Cute Hotel! aw roofs....

 


checked into our hotel with it's fantastic window view... cheap and so charming... santa maria nuevo was another renaisance church in the pink, green, white, cool to have all the churches quite similar in style together to begin comparing them on their own terms - this one has a more dynamic facade, more balenced massing etc. this was the earliest intact facade in the city, by Alberti. Inside was a drawing listed in our history book as the beginning of perspective in painting, quite exciting, and a gioccameti floating cross, gilded and graphic, and quite more beautiful floating at the beginning of the nave then above the altar as i had imagined.

wander wander lost.... to the david! 

ooo names escaping me? - fixed

 


found San Miniato al Monte on the top of the hill, 13th century gold icons on the otherwise duomo-like marble facade. interior astonishing, first wood-beamed basilica i'd seen, elaborately carved and paintings, many mosaics and astonishing woodworks in the sacristry. it was rather a split-level home of a church, with the main chapel in the middle, the crypt half-below behind, the brotherhood's chapel half-above... the crypt was a lovely dark space with an even field of stolen columns supporting little brick domes... very plain in the back with decorations increasing to the altar where subdued light was trickling in from outside.

outside was a dense graveyard - fascinating different monuments, pushed all up against each other, wall plaques with little lanterns, some tiny houses, a good summary of architecture in florence in miniature, fortunately we even found some more contemporary monuments in the back corner. fun to wander, this lion was guarding a tomb. i have a lion statue series of pictures going, necessitating picture.... 

Florence - Sun 19 Feb

 


early arrival in this Tuscan town... 7:15 Sunday no one would be awake in the states, although i have noticed that no town in europe seems to wake up as early as american cities... so it goes. i like waking up oddly early. wonderful sunny warm (10 degrees? C) breezes and charming, just as you imagined it streets. deefinately grittier and deliberately older the switzerland or paris. a little fake is the instant reaction to seeing something like that, but the slight decay was probably real. narrow streets hooked up frequently with normal car-roads. tuscan oranges and golds all over. found the hotel with very little difficulty, wonderful booking service. wandered a little into the main, chanced upon the medici chapel without realizing it, sat and watched the vendors crawl casually into the square and set up their booths. I ran just down the street to catch the first glimpse of the tempting duomo, and back within 5 minutes... wandering, found ourselves some 3 foot alleys to squeeze into from the unexpectedly open gate (i pushed it open with my chin while gaping). sat in on part of a mass in the duomo to get in before the opening... uninspiring interior (besides a unsuitably realistic and gory painting of hell to heaven clinging to the dome), outrageously plain after the eye-dazzle puzzle of white, pink, and green marble wrapping the entire facade. sigh - it was a very huge church to expect to be decorated all over.

wandered down to the river, ponte vecchio, and up the hill for fabled views over florence. very touristy, even in the morning, but lovely spots of quiet greenery winding up the hill. plazzo michelangelo, worth a stop for this view, not for the replica marble scupltures in streaked green bronze, then further up... i was happy to have a guidebook for florence, there would have been a lot to miss without one. guidebook takes its place of pride in the corner of the picture.... 

Wiped the face off my skull....

 


bern was GREEN! thats all you really need to know about it. all the buildings in the downtown were a uniform mossy green stone. this picture is kind of ironic, haven't seen many green scooters (although there are scooters everywhere in europe, it will be so strange to not have any or many in the states)... but the emptyness and greeness were definately things i'll remember about bern.

the OTHER thing i'll definately remember is a lot more personal and not so architectural... i had taken off from the train station in the wrong direction (i protest that it's the maps fault, but i had been pretty bad about finding my way correctly the last week or so, switzerland screwed up my metal) having got a fair way walking with the heavy pack, i thought "well if i skate back it'll be really fast and i won't be silly having heavy wheels hanging off my back but still plodding. probably a bad idea, eh?" ha the bad idea was definately a part of the thought... wasn't too bad for a fair ways, but europeans don't necessarily value smooth pavement, even when it's not cobblestone.... so yeah i went down, stupid gap in the pavement, wouldn't have been a problem normally, but the weight of the pack pushed me over just that little bit more... and made me land a little harder then normal... and then slid up and pushed my head into the pavement.... ugh. hahaha.... i did actually just put my head down for a sedcond instead of popping up and laughing as is the normal response.... but i did have to laugh.... STUPID beth...

wandered for two or three hours after that (sans skates). didn't want to acknowledge hurt, draped my hair over my forehead and back in a wierd hairstyle that mostly hid the GAPING OPEN WOUNDS IN MY SKULL (oh wait they were just raspberries, still rather moist and nast though, matched by smaller ones on my knee and hand). did stop at on of the nice public fountains to clean it. didn't hurt much, just stung, and definately colored my experience. gave up walking after the sun set, got wound tended by a disarmingly kind woman at the apothocary (apparently they're free first aide as well as pharmacy there) and hung out with the drunk teenagers (common phenomenon) reading and writing in the train station until my train came in. ha what a day.... ronchamp was amazing, bern was embarassing... i'll remember both... 

Bern, Unfortunately - still saturday

 

deciding that the skies weren't going to open up and pour light on the monument, i trekked back to the train station... i much prefer walking uphill. almost always. i prefer the effort, and the lack of blisters.

ran into tony at the belfort train station - smile-inducing coincidence, and very very fortunate... got his train info and the florence hotel address and said see you when i will... ended up getting into the same night train compartment though, fun to 'randomly' see someone you know twice in a day in europe in completely different places... i took the time before the night train and my railpass to check out the other large Swiss town i hadn't seen yet (not Zurich either... we'll see....)

i should have stayed in basel actually, i just barely got to run out of the train station and see the sun hitting the town for the only time in that week we were there and say, "hey this could actually be nice...." before jumping on the train to bern. not a memorable train ride at all. until the very end when these gorgeous mountains poked their way out of the horizon for just a second. goal of bern became to obtain a better view of the mountains. 

Ronchamp inspires further babbling.

 

ok, one more...

there was a pyrimid/ziggurat defining an edge of the outdoor chapel space, ie it was at the edge of the hill. very suprising because i had never seen it photographed. nice little monument though... set itself up well against the amazing scenery, which i shall not show you either.

no interior pictures to illustrate the most amazing part of the chapel, the pictures wouldn't do anything to really say much about the tense peace of the interior. and words aren't going to do much either - how fantastic. i'm sure the experience of the chapel would be different for everyone - but i felt like there was a pulling of different elements for your head and eyes, but unlike some of the elaborate churches of rome, there was a subdued peace about it - not hyper or impatient, just measured interests... and i wasn't going to talk about this? will need to make these into something coherent before posting... 'for real'. project for the week. 

Sculpture!

 

nother picture! these let in the light in a most amazing way, illuminating little side chapels perfectly. amazing difference from any and every symetrical church, but compeletely effective and reverent (ironic and illuminating, corbusier was an athiest) 

Sat 18 Feb - Ronchamp

 

holy crap this is only going to be interesting to someone who cares to take a way-too indepth look at ronchamp. i don't think the impression is going anywhere in my head, i'll come back and write after getting a little more of the gist of my week down.... and hide this behind a cut ha

the entrance sequence to the chapel was exquisitly plotted - almost aggravating in it's deliberateness, felt a little heavy handed to make this artificial hill to block your view and the pilgrim's hostel crowded the road a little much - but the chapel revealed itself in a lovely manner, from the top down like a star wars scene slide. i wonder how having studied the chapel in pictures so much affected the impression - having no idea what it would look like would be completely astonishing. the walls and overbearing roof look overly massive, until you realize how many huge holes are in the walls, and inside you see the roof is held up on thin pillars. walking around the sculpted west side with a suprising gun-barrel/nostril shaped waterspout/gargoyle into a contrasting brutal concrete basin with pyrimidal and other geometric concrete blocks breaking up the water flow. 

I'm Back! Story Starting midway through - Ronchamp

wow.... so much to write about. scared to start almost. mishap with my pictures and camera makes it easier for me to start with italy and week 2 and go back to week 1 in switzerland.... it's all after the fact anyway, so here goes...


saturday, february 18.... having finished up work and sightseeing in basel on friday evening, woke up to catch the 8:30 train out to to belfort then ronchamp. already something of a pilmigrage having had to check out of the hostel and carry my unfortunately large 2-week bag with me that early... belfort france a sleepy little town on saturday morning, had a little time to wander on the transfer.

train to ronchamp was a tiny two cars long, a daily commuter type train out to these little out-of-the way mountain towns then anything fast. felt a little like a short bus, symetrical two cars so you couldn't tell which way it was going to take off... very fun. personable trainman probably knew everyone in all the towns on the route, even with the obvious bag he asked if I was going to see the chapel - perhaps the only reason people go out there i guess.

signs to ronchamp guided a fair way down into a suprisingly busy street on the edge of the town of ronchamp, then up and out of town and up and up. probably a milish or a few kilometers up - ha and i do think in both miles and kilometers now... quite the hike. might have to consider backpacking more seriously though, it was kind of fun to plow through with the weight too.

first glimpses of ronchamp around the hill were pretty magical, first from the train for a split-second, then walking up the hill and having it appear over and through the treescreen... just enough teasing to be exciting. i did miss my chance to see it in the the sun... instead of going up the main path i thought tromping up the back way through the woods would be fun, and the sun hit it just as i had gotten to the fence... so it goes, and the clouds were pretty excitingly dynamic themselves....

backtracking, entrance (amazingly plotted entry sequence, this guy thought of everything) this guy, being the architect Le Corbusier, one of the most famous and revolutionary archtects of the 20th century, and this place being the chapel Notre Dame du Haute (of the hight), a pilmagrage site through a couple different religions, bombed in WW2, and rebuilt by corbusier in 1954, at the end of his life and at the end of his oevure. definately an important monument to architects.