07.17.07

Today I went to the Vatican Museum. Its hard to enjoy anything when its 100 degrees out and you are surrounded by hoardes of Japanese tourist groups with large Nikon SLRs and umbrellas getting shoved into you. I did really enjoy what I saw. The museum holds some of the most influential pieces of art ever made. It is set up to guide to through to the finale of the Sistine Chapel. I understand why they do this but while sweating and getting pushed through the museum I was resenting this set up. I was completely pushed past the apollo belvedere and only got a quick glimpse of the Laocaan (I am returning to the museum for a free trip in a week). This made me sad but after a while I got so frustrated with the people of the museum (i had waited over 2 hours to even enter) that I started to rush through to the Raphael Stanze. I became totally let down by myself because of this. This had been the only place thus far that I had to wait on any type of line over 15 minutes to get into on the trip. I should have been able to handle it but it wore me down. The Raphaels were brilliant and I got a chance to stand and enjoy them. After getting over my initial shock of being grabbed by the arm and pulled away from Joe when I entered the Sistine Chapel, it was really amazing. The fact that you can't take non-flash pictures is completely ridiculous. The images are much better in real life than in books. I felt that some of the body shadings were so incredibly different between sections I wondered if they were from Michaelangelo himself or the restoration. Either way he used some hot orange and teal colors that are just amazing for his time. Some of the legs of the martyrs seemed to be coming out of the ceiling at us. I especially enjoyed some of the side frescoes (good ol Perugino and co.) and the wall tapestry paintings were incredible. They were some of the most meticulous paintings I have ever seen.