Traveling Tuesday

This evening I'm giving my Art Appreciation students a lecture on the Italian Renaissance.  For most of them who hadn't set foot in a museum prior to my course, the only familiarity they have with the Renaissance is because of the Ninja Turtles: Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo and Raphael.  

The great tragedy of my discipline is that we must view the objects of our study through slides and pixelated power points rather than in piazzas and cathedrals. 

One need not read an original copy of As I Lay Dying to embrace Faulkner's words.  Traveling Ancient Greece is not requisite for a complete understanding of Pythagoras' theorem.   But, viewing a jpg of Botticelli on a screen will never do his work justice. Certainly, we can learn the cast of characters or the techniques employed or the historical context; but to experience a work fully, we must stand before it and react to it on an emotional level.

Sigh, if only I had a jet to whisk all 42 of my students over to Florence for the afternoon.....

Photos by moi. Florence 2007.