Tuesday: Art, Music, and Gelato

Starting off the day with another 8:30 a.m. lecture, I had a long, but exciting, day ahead of me. At the beginning of lecture, we received our team assignments for the scavenger hunt activity later in the day. I had been looking forward to the scavenger hunt since reading the syllabus, and was eager to show off my knowledge and ability to navigate Venice. In lecture, we learned about the history and progression of art through the Renaissance. Again, we were able to readily apply our lecture material in the afternoon when we visited Accademia and looked at the paintings there. Three main elements we discussed as we moved through the changes in artwork associated with paradigm shifts were acquiring of perspective, vanishing point, and object representation. Beginning with Byzantine art, we examined the all gold backgrounds and lack of depth. Additionally, we drew from Gombrich’s “everyman” concept to understand how the similar faces of each person in the painting related to the poor definition of a human in Medieval times. Furthermore, the gold background represented time outside of time. In the Post-Renaissance, a gold halo was used instead to represent this temporarily and act as a barrier between earthly existence and other worlds. At Accademia, I saw many Byzantine paintings, easily identifiable by their gold backgrounds and lack of dimensions.

Progressing forward in time, we began to see the beginning of three dimensions used in paintings. Artists such as Giotto and Alberti attempted to capture the third dimension by thinking of perspective and representation in new ways. Giotto moved away from the standard gold background and began painting the background blue, to represent the sky. Alberti projected the objects in his painting onto a plane, using a grid. DaVinci later gave substance to Alberti’s grid concept, which was often referenced by other painters in artwork.

There was a gradual adoption and perfection of representing an object in painting. Topics such as subject v. object and mind v. body were experimented with and a new paradigm began. Using a “they do not see us” approach, the new paradigm had artists thinking of a window barrier between the viewers and the painting. This change in perspective was only one of the innovations in Renaissance artwork. Other advances include the use of oil as a new medium and the integration of depth and color.

After our intriguing visit to Academia, we began our scavenger hunt activity. Once we deciphered our clue and traveled to the correct location, most of us decided to take a vaporetto back to San Servolo and catch up on some much-needed sleep.  Returning in the evening, we ate dinner together before attending a Vivaldi convert at San Vidal Church.

I was proud that I could successfully lead our group from San Marco to Academia. The Vivaldi concert was an especially unique and insightful experience. I had never attended a classical music concert before and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. While listening to the different songs, I found myself looking around the church and thinking about the different styles of architecture and paintings, and how the changes in those areas is reflected in Venice. Venice functions as a heterotopia, existing as a reflection of the past. If analyzed closely, one can easily see the details within the city that represent elements of transformation and ultimately contribute to the overall feeling and function of Venice as a heterotopia. In a similar sense, each musician and instrument in the group at the Vivaldi concert plays a role in creating the composite sound. Each instrument, from the violin to the bass, has a unique sound, but together they produce a harmonious noise that possess meaning in a perfect symbiosis. I especially enjoyed the encore song they performed where the musicians plucked the strings of their instruments, producing even more precise musical notes that culminated into a beautiful melody.

After the concert, we had just enough time to walk to my favorite gelato place and get some gelato before the vaporetto came. The man at the gelato place was especially generous, even with my whopping four scoops! Today, I learned more than I ever thought there was to know about art and had a lot of fun. Tomorrow, I am going to try to go into the city early to observe Venice’s fish market, so I must get some sleep. Ciao, buona notte!