The excellence of ‘Mad Men’ notwithstanding, I have very mixed views about advertising in general (he announced, for no very good reason other than it’s been on my mind of late)
On the plus side there’s the high levels of craft skill usually displayed in advertising in most media. Something genuinely beautiful/astonishing/provoking happens along often enough for it not to be co-incidental.
Any industry – make no mistake, it is an industry – that comes up with something as daft and beautiful as this
can almost be forgiven for routinely (and apparently shamelessly) calling people ‘creatives’…and all the other crimes against grammer, punctuation, common usage and even common sense committed on a depressingly regular basis.
Who else would be mad enough to want to fill the streets of New York with plasticine bunnies…and then go and buy 3.9 tonnes of the stuff and hire 40 animators and actually do it, in real time with no special effects trickery ?
Worth putting up with hours of slick, heartless exhortations to buy rubbish for this, surely ? Hard to think of any other commercial (or even, dare I say it, artistic) context that would support such a wonderful realisation of an endearingly simple idea, or have taken it to such exhileratingly bonkers extremes. It’s a joyful thing, even though I suspect the multi-coloured bunnies will linger far longer in the mind than will the brand – Sony Bravia – that paid for their creation.
Even if you deplore the squandering of an alleged £10m (enough for several full length independent films) on what is claimed to be the most expensive add ever made, you’ve got to admire the sheer beauty of thing. I first saw this in a cinema, and had to restrain a strong impulse to burst into applause at the end of it.
Phenomenal amounts of talent, time and money are clearly being expended in the service of….well, what, exactly? Other than the commercial imperative, obviously….
Except even this last is by no means obvious. As far as I’m aware, there’s precious little serious research (as opposed to focus-group consultation, which is a rather different thing) to show that any of it actually works, that our purchasing decisions are influenced to any significant degree.
I’ve no evidence for this, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to discover that the extraordinary levels of skill and ingenuity expended on TV/Film adds especially actually achieve little more than lodging themselves – the advert – firmly in our consiousness, and make little impact on our purchasing decisions. That what the best ads do is actually just advertise themselves, as distinct artefacts in their own right. A circularity that seems either pleasing or irritatingly self-satisfied, depending on mood and how many times a particular example has interrupted my evening’s viewing.
Then along came this little number…
Which forcefully reminded me of something that first occured to me a while ago – that one of the more worrying things all ads share is what I think of an underlying desire to colonise paradise.
As Jim Reeves sings, ‘Welcome to my world, built with you in mind’.
How much more explicit could you get?
The obvious implication being that the vendor in this case has the wherewithal to create a bespoke world just for you, the customer.
In other words they will build paradise, indvidually tailored to your specific requirements.
The underlying claim of snake-oil salesmen since the beginning of time – the only thing notable about this particular example being, perhaps, it’s astonishing degree of truthfulness (almost certainly un-intentional) disguised as a bit of sophisticated word/image play. Which of course we all understand, without even having to think too hard about it.
Of course …
So maybe I’m just being stupidly literal, unsophisticated, reading too much into it.
Think about it for a minute.
Strip away all the clever language and dazzling imagery and surely the underyling logic of most (if not all) advertising runs something like this :
‘The world is sadly imperfect, and your place in it less than you deserve/desire’ – esablishing a lack or need
‘We have created product (or service) x especially for you, to solve your problem and meet your needs’ – filling the need
‘To achieve true happiness all you need to do is buy x’ – the benefit, closing the circle.
(If you’re not convinced by this analysis, check out the text from Victorian/Edwardian newspaper and magazine ads, many of which replicate this structure almost exactly)
The modes of delivery have diversified hugely, the means employed become extraordinarily sophisticated but the basic message remains the same.
There is such a thing/place as Paradise, and you can attain it…
Not by the excercise of any moral or spiritual discipline or effort, but simply by the application of money.
But never mind, because nobody actually believes any of this – we know it’s a con, and are (at some level) willing participants. We even enjoy it, if it’s well done.
Surely we’re all clever/sophisticated enough to shrug off any tarnishing effects (on the soul, or any other bits we might we to keep unsullied) brought on by long-term hosing beneath the myriad commercial torrents constantly aimed at us.
So you probably won’t be interested in this little excercise/game I invented for myself a while back.
It’s very simple. Any time you encounter advertising that makes a clearly identifiable claim to something or other you just assert the reverse. Boldly, clearly and with complete confidence. For e.g.
“Gillete, the best a man can get”
to which you respond in a loud, clear voice (you have to do it out loud) anything from,
“No it isn’t”
to
“Is it f**k you lying bastard”
according to personal taste and sobriety.
Try it. Probably best in the privacy of your own home, but if you’re feeling adventurous…
It’s fun, and I gaurantee you’ll feel better about yourself.
Actually, on second thoughts, I don’t offer any gaurantees of any kind, but it works for me.
The chances of any of us achieveing any sort of paradise are, I feel, pretty slim, but it never hurts to take sensible precautions.
Just think how pissed-off you’d be if your own personal, cherished version of Nirvana not only turns out to be just like everyone else’s, but full of strip-malls and smug gits and improbably slim women in over-priced cars.
Another sunny – stripped back, soon to be spring – Sunday, another walk in the woods. How English, how middle class can you get? I don’t care, sometimes the effort of stepping outside the stereotype just isn’t worth it. Especially not on a glorious day like this, cold, crisp and clear. I’m conscious of a definate sense of anticipation as I lace up my walking (and slithering, sliding, jumping in puddles and squelching deliciously through mud) boots. Days like this, you just have to get out.
Having noticed a certain wintry open-ness to the landscape on the way over – no leaves, so you can see further, dead-looking laid hedges still sporting severe pre-spring trims, hardly any roadside scrub growth – I’m somewhat surprised by how much the wood retains that sense of density, of enclosure. Not as emphatic as it will be in summer, when everything’s in full growth, but it’s still striking. Something to do with the large amount of Hazel scrub colonizing the ground space, and patches of evergreen, no doubt.
At the moment it’s like being able to examine the skeletal structure of some vast, complicated beast. Seeing how the slanting sunlight catches the upward slanting tracery of fine hazel twigs laced between the more mature trunks it strikes me once again how web-like they are. How credible scarey folktales about giant spiders become. Even on a sunny afternoon.
Sternly reminding myself that many cultures regard spiders as benign, I press on through the twiggy, springy hazel web. As nearly always happens, I’m rewarded by seing something I’ve never seen before.
Today I suddenly notice the wild swerve taken by a pine trunk in its upward progress – from the ginger bark and somewhat ill-kempt, raffish dark green canopy a Scots pine, I think. There’s a small stand of them, all not quite straight (like the lads at the bar, any saturday night) but none as curved as the one that first caught my eye.
I haven’t the faintest idea why that one tree took such a different route, but am obscurely delighted that it did, and that I happened to notice. There’s something ineffably satisfying about the sudden deviation from the norm. Thinking about it as I write, it occurs to me that part of the attraction is the apparent randomness. (I say apparent because I suspect such a striking deviation to be susceptable of causal explanation) This really is a case where it might be possible to literally ‘explain something away’, where a rational approach may be inimical to a purely sensual appreciation of beauty.
Happy in my ignorance, easily distracted by new delights, I’m soon absorbed in trying to get a satisfactory photo of the way the slanting sun edges the Hazel catkins with an almost fierce glow. A slightly haphazard procedure as the sun is so strong that I can’t actually see the screen on the back of the camera. Never mind, I have faith, and take a few extra, just to be on the safe side. I’ve more or less shoved myself right into the middle of a particularly wild & twiggy Hazel, and am happily nattering away to myself when a youngish couple saunter down the path past me with their dog…and without the slightest sign of surprise at finding a bush full of muttering idiot. They nod gravely in greeting (more or less in synch) and the woman utters a cheery ‘Hi there’, as they continue on their way.
I can’t be the only person that takes a deep delight in such instinctive (and distinctively English) sang-froid, can I ?
In the normal (in so far as I can be said to posses such) run of things I tend to be primarily sensitive to visual things. Today I’ve been vaguely thinking about an interveiw for a multi-sensory school project I have tomorrow, so my ears are working as well. An added bonus, I think, noticing what at first I take to be the sound of a woodpecker drilling wood.
Advancing cautiously into clump of pines, and finding a handy stump to sit down on, I perch slightly breathlessly and wait for it to come back…whatever it is, and hope that I can spot the bird as well. Whatever it is, there’s more than one of them, as I can hear short bursts rhythmic tapping coming from several directions, although never at once.
Having strained ears and eyes for a while, I finally conclude that it’s not woodpeckers. The sound seems too short, and too quiet to be made by beaks being vigorously applied to tree-trunks. Just as I’m thinking this, I see a flash of darkish blue on a podgy little bird moving down a tree trunk head first. It’s a Nuthatch – as far as I know the only bird that habitually does this head-long descent – and I realise that the sound must be the birds trying to get into nuts. Living up to their name, in fact. There’s something so deeply satisfying about this, actually hearing something I dimly remember reading about years and years ago.
Bouyed up by this, I sit and listen a while longer. Silencing all those muttering, gibbering internal voices (do this, remember that, where did I read that?) one by one, until I can actually hear what there is to be heard. Road noise, inevitably, but easy enough to tune out. A surprising variety of flying things – small plane, jet airliner, another small plane and then a helicopter – improbably all in the space of not much more than ten minutes. All sorts of bird song, hardly any of which I can reliably identify…apart from the asthmatic coughing of some distant rooks. A few shots from a shotgun – someone afetr rabbits, perhaps? A slightly hysterical dog (happily receding, this) and yapping owner.
And, finally, once I’ve noticed everything else, so quiet I almost miss it, a gentle creaking sound. There’s hardly any breeze, but even so the thin trunks around me are swaying gently…creaking now and then. It sounds to me like the forest breathing, and it’s one of the most peaceful things I’ve heard for ages.
I went for a bracing 6 mile walk several nights ago – a distressing experience in more than one way. It hurt, for one thing. This was almost a week ago, and my calves have only just stopped aching. I’m back to striding manfully about the place, instead of tottering around like an arthritic tortoise, but it’s taken far longer than it should.
The hurt also hurt in other ways, as it made horribly apparent just how much of a flabby desk jockey/couch potato I have become. Ten years ago I’d have shrugged this off with barely a whimper. Quite why I secretly believed I should be different from the vast majority of the idle middle-aged, slumping gradually into complete stasis, I don’t know, but I obviously did. A comfort I will henceforth no longer be able to clasp to my (rapidly increasing) bosom.
Worst of all, I have only my own idiocy (and a large scotch) to blame.
I’ve been afflicted with rodents for a few weeks now – one of the joys of living in an old property, I suppose – and the latest stage of my campaign to be rid of my little furry lodgers has been about bins. I discovered a while back that they can get in the old plastic flip-top item in the kitchen area. I got a metal bin with a heavy lid. It worked. No more exploding bin-liners due to rodent-gnawed holes. Result.
Well….almost.
Not wanting to simply chuck the old bin out, I shoved it amongst all the piled up stuff that occupies the outer fringes of the bedroom until I could think of something else to use it for.
The rodents beat me to it.
Having skillfully evaded all the traps (traditional and humane) that I have dispersed around the place, one of them somehow managed to fall into the bin. Lacking a bag full of rubbish to clamber through, it couldn’t get out again. It could scrabble around energetically though.
You’d be surprised how effective an empty plastic bin can be as an amplifier, especially at 1.30 am.
I’d just been drifting away, in that delicious half-sleeping half-waking state….to be rudely jerked back into consciousness by what sounded like an elephant roller-skating across a tin roof. I know I don’t have a tin roof, so that couldn’t possibly have been it. Even with the more surreal options ruled out, though, the noise was so loud and un-expected that it took me a good few minutes to work out what it might be.
At this point any sensible soul would have simply taken the bin outside, possibly lodging a half-brick on top to stop the wretched rodent escaping, and left it till morning.
Any sensible soul…
Quite why it seemed it a good idea to deal with it right that moment, I still can’t quite explain. I’d like to blame my nightcap – an immoderatly large scotch – but I have a nasty feeling that that it goes much deeper than that.
Whatever the reason, it was but the work of a moment to throw on jeans, sock, shoes, t-shirt and (mercifully) a big fleecy jacket. Grab the bin and down the stairs to the car. No need for the wallet or mobile, this won’t take ten minutes. Five miles or so up the road, into the countryside, eject the rodent (I’m still not sure whether it was a large mouse or a small rat) and back to bed.
It seemed such a good plan – apart from the (in retrospect glaringly) obvious point that only the somewhat deranged would even contemplate exchanging a nice warm bed for a nasty, damp night in the first place.
It worked, too. Up to a point.
The point where, having driven miles up the road into the dank depths of South Northants, pulled up in a layby and firmly deposited the piteously squeeking rodent into the hedgerow, I tried to start the car and head home to aforementioned bed.
There’s something singularly dispiriting about that sad whining noise a car makes when it can’t quite start at the best of times. It seems to gain in depth and poignancy in the early hours of the morning, I find. Despite the fact that (as far as I knew) there was no-one around to hear me, I did not let out a manly roar of blasphemous annoyance. I might have uttered a choice oath or two sotto-voce, but I chiefly remember shrugging and thinking – ‘serves you right for not replacing the obviously inadequate battery the car had when I brought it a few months ago’. I might even have laughed ruefully at myself a bit.
I won’t bore you with all the details of the long trudge home. Six miles (I know how far it was, on account of having asked the kindly delivery lady of my local car repair shop to clock it for me, as she gave me a lift out with a new battery the day after) might not sound like much, but it’s far enough, believe me.
Far enough to reduce me to arthritic tortoise-hood for a few days. Far enough marvel at the willfull blindness of the average lorry driver (none of whom stopped for my outstretched tumb) and (on a more positive note) how many Tawny Owls I heard calling.
Far enough to indulge in any number of mental games and muttered conversations with myself. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I wasn’t gesturing to myself as well. Maybe I don’t blame the lorry drivers, after all.
Pondering how many randy owls seemed to be on the pull that night (they tend to call whilst mating, I seem to remember reading somewhere), I indulged in a spot of soul searching as to my own single state. Given the fact that I was staggering along a country road, money & phone-less, in the wee small hours of a singularly damp and unpleasant morning, the answer to ”why is this man single?’ seems, with the benefit of hindsight, embarassingly obvious. At the time, however, it kept me happily occupied for a good few miles. A circumstance which explains a lot, I suspect.
It was, however, around the point where I caught myself thinking – ‘maybe my rodent has ended up as an Owl’s supper – shame!’ that I realised that the whole thing had now tipped over into farce, and that there’s really no hope for me at all. An oddly bracing realisation which cheered me up no end, and carried me, giggling intermittently, the rest of the way home.
Despite the pain, the expense of a new battery and the bemused laughter of friends, I don’t bear the rodent any malice. I like to think of him now enjoying an exciting new life in the country, and look forward to bringing the rest of his family out to join him soon.
Somewhere around the 4th mile, it suddenly struck me. ‘Slightly mad idea that kind of makes sense at the time, before it tips over into ridiculousness…’
That’s so typical of me. I know I laughed out loud at the thought.
It doesn’t take much to make Allan happy. A gentle breeze to take the edge of the heat, a seat at a quiet café, a cheap and delicious plate of rice salad and the best part of half a pint of caffe latte will do it pretty well every time.
Even the fact that the one thing I’ve schlepped all the way over here to see in the archaeological museum – the famous Etruscan bronze chimera (as a devotee of mythical beasts how could I resist) – is nowhere to be seen fails to dent my contentment. As an added bonus, I swear I’ve just heard a pigeon wheeze; the scruffiest pigeon I’ve ever seen, hopping down the steps outside the Ospedale degli Innocenti. Of such minor delights is true contentment born.
The archaeological museum is an odd place, obviously in the throes of being modernised, but there’s still rooms and rooms full of 19thC wooden display cases – I feel a little like an extra in an Agatha Christie film, for some reason – most of which prove to be full of loads and loads of lovely little Etruscan bronze figures. An attractive mezzanine and the second floor seem pretty well done, effectively showing off a good collection of Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Etruscan artefacts. It takes me a while to notice, but the basic building itself is very attractive – a massive 17thC villa. Complete with delicately painted neo-classical walls and ceilings. Sensibly, most of these have been cleaned and restored, and they complement the exhibits very well. The only exception seems to be in the Egyptian galleries, where they’ve painted the walls and ceilings to resemble the interior of Egyptian tombs ( I presume). Lovely deep blue ceilings, lotus friezes around the edges, here and there what looks like a pretty good reproduction of a hieroglyphic panel. I do notice one oddity on the ceiling of one gallery – a patch of what I presume is the original, neo-classical painting, peeping through the blue. It looks like someone ran out of blue paint before they finished the job, and I’d love to know if it’s still there.
The mezzanine features an interesting exhibition (spread across 3 venues, as near as I can make out) exploring mythological ideas around the horoscope, and displaying a variety of historical artefacts alongside contemporary paintings and prints. It’s a bold idea, and I wish the modern work are up to it. Some of the prints are interesting, but the painting is just not good enough, being of that school of post-expressionism that strives for an ironic, childish simplicity, and simply ends up looking like copies of Braque or Matisse painted by an eight year old. Their one strength is the bold use of saturated colours. It’s good to see pure colour, without the muting patina of age, in any archaeological museum..it brightens the place up no end.
I had intended to do various things after lunch, only one of which (finally buying that scarf for my sister) actually come to pass, but never mind. Italian cities are the best places in the world for window shopping – almost regardless of the merchandise, the displays are so stylish.
Shame the same can’t be said for some of the potential customers. I can’t help noticing the preponderance of blokes wearing horrid ¾ length shorts covered with pockets. It’s a mystery to me why, when you can get them without pockets and in a variety of appealing shades of bright, summery colours, most choose to slouch about in shapeless sludge-coloured disasters. Studded with random pockets that make the average bloke look like he’s wearing a chest of drawers. There is no excuse, not even practicality, as I notice that most also tote rucksacks. I don’t know where this deep aversion to elegance (that amounts almost to suspicion) comes from, but it saddens me that it even seems to be catching on here…
I need something cheer me up after such gloomy thoughts – after a bit of wandering around, I succeed in finding Grom. Despite the unpromising name this, the book says, is the best gelateria in all Firenze. My best efforts notwithstanding, I haven’t managed to sample them all, so I can’t say whether the book is completely accurate as regards Florentine gelateria. I merely record that Grom are purveyors of the finest ice cream I have ever tasted. Anywhere. Albiccoca to die for!
In the course of later wandering, exploring yet another, half-hidden corner. This one houses an ex-church used by the Guelph faction in the struggle between the supporters of the Papacy – the Guelphs – and the Holy Roman Emperor – the Ghibellines – who took advantage of a period of ascendancy to gut the church. Used for some time as a fire-station, it now is now a public library. All this thinking about factions puts me in mind of Romeo & Juliet, and a notion for a pops into my mind. I’ve never been to Verona (one day) so I don’t know if it’s anything like Florence, but it occurs to me that you could well create the tension & claustrophobia of “two houses, both alike in dignity” feuding with something almost like maze – slot-like passages and tiny, irregular piazzi. Imagine how much more dramatic the fight between Tybalt & Mercutio would be if, instead all the stagings I’ve ever seen involving fair amounts of space, it took place in a tiny piazzale with barely enough room to swing a cat. A back-alley affair, en vero! It would be even better on film…one day.
A little later than that, in Orsanmichelle, I think I’ve finally found my favourite of all the many churches I’ve visited in Florence. Architecturally, it’s a simple shape (it started life as a grain market), attractively frescoed all over the vaulted ceiling with saints..but simply. Then there’s a lovely sculpture of the Madonna and child..but the focus is an amazing Gothic tabernacle, mainly white marble containing an absolutely luminous 15thC Maestà.
The stonework is very intricate, a mixture of geometric and naturally derived plant shapes. Not the sometimes over-blown exuberance of the baroque; just as intricate, but more restrained, all the decoration serving to echo and enhance the underlying geometry of the whole, not to overwhelm or encrust it.
I think the visual balance of the whole is just about perfect. Maximum richness – gold, ultramarine & rose – at the absolute focus, the Madonna. Suitably finely enclosed in subtly gleaming marble (there’s not a lot of light about, and photos were forbidden…sorry!)then the earthy, more relaxing tones of the frescos, then simple, bare stone. It’s like a series of ripples of diminishing colour and complexity.
It’s all very lovely, and there’s a free organ recital here later, so I may well be back.
The other thing I like about Orsanmichelle is that some of it’s best art is outside. A series of niches set into the outer wall contains statuary commissioned from the best and brightest of 15thC Tuscan artists…Donatello, Ghiberti & Pisano amongst others.
It could be argued that this is simply vanity on the part of the wealthy donors – ‘look, we’re rich’ (and by implication, powerful) enough to afford this, and the public flaunting of massive donations to good causes doubtless had political significance. Even if that was the case originally, I’m willing to bet that today not more than a tiny percentage of the people who enjoy the work know who paid for it and why. And still all this fine, fine sculpture is still there, free for all to enjoy. They’re gradually replacing the originals with very, very good copies, and moving them inside to the museum, the better to preserve them. I asked about the museum. It’s closed. Che sera sera!
Writing this, trying not to doze off, in what has become my favourite café, in the Palazzo Strozzi. Chic without being too pricey, and very central for just about everywhere, trying to decide what to do with the rest of the afternoon…
I can’t really think of anything I’d like more than a little organ music, so I go back to Orsanmichelle, and just sit quietly at the back, drinking it all in – Bach again, the perfect musical accompaniment to the restrained visual richness all around. The music pours on, a liquid river of perfectly interwoven counterpoint that laps around our feet, then, stirred up by the impossible low register, froths up right over us, expanding to fill the whole space.
So there I sit, dripping with music, at peace. Deeply content.
A final, lasting memory of Florence, art and music…..until next time.
No-one at home will believe this, but I’m up early again, making my way over to the Museo de San Marco. The streets are full of the rattling sound of suitcase wheels, everyone seems to be leaving (or arriving, I suppose), and I have to step off the narrow pavements several times to cede passage to human tortoises, bent double under bulging backpacks.
There’s really only two things I want to do today – go to the Museo de San Marco, and get my sister a scarf from one of the market stalls by San Lorenzo…oh, and little pressies for other folks. OK, three things I want to do. That should keep me happy most of the morning….then, who knows?
It’s only taken me a week to relax enough to not worry about the rest of the day. At this rate, I’ll be nice and chilled out some time the middle of next month. Shame I’m going home the day after tomorrow.
I hadn’t realised until I read the guidebook, but there’s another opportunity to come face to face with things I used to look at in mum’s books…and that’s why I’m headed for the Museo de San Marco, to look at the Fra Angelicos…well, one in particular, a version of the Annunciation which has somehow embedded itself in my consciousness as the prototype for that particular image. I’m in illustrious company, though, as a fair few later artists have reworked it…Leonardo Da Vinci amongst others. Strangely, I note in retrospect, it never occurred to me that it might be a disappointment (as, for example, was the Sistine Chapel) – evidence of faith in something, although I’m not quite sure what.
Finally seeing the work in the flesh – it’s a fresco, the first thing you see as you go up the stairs towards the monks cells – is a considerable thrill, and very moving. I wasn’t expecting it to be there, and I literally froze half-way between one tread and the next, foot in mid-air. Jaw hanging open as well, no doubt, to complete the image of foolishness.
In contrast to the poised serenity of the angel (as a child it just seemed to me instinctively ‘right’ that angels should have beautifully coloured wings….I think this was what drew me to the picture in the first place) Mary leans forward awkwardly, arms crossed over her chest, hugging herself. She looks very young, and afraid. It’s this humanity that makes the work so moving, embedded in, and to some extent balancing, the radiant spirituality.
Fra Angelica became a Dominican monk, and was very obviously a deeply religious person. It occurs to me that the Italian version of his nick-name, ‘Beatta Angelica’ or Blessed Angel is exactly right. What better life for any artist than to be not only licensed, but actively encouraged to pursue and perfect one’s art, that which moves within you. To attract the most important patrons (Cosimo I de Medici, amongst others) and to have access to the best materials. The panel paintings and altar pieces collected together in the room on the ground floor are rich with the finest pigments and dripping with gold. Despite which, it’s the deep and obvious sincerity of spiritual feeling that strikes you first about these works, and that stays with you.
Blessed man indeed, given such riches and making such an immeasurably greater return upon them, to the benefit of all.
Upstairs – when I finally remember to start breathing again, finish that step and all the others, it’s possible to view all the monks cells. Including the special, double sized ones for the VIPs – Cosimo I de Medici himself and Savonarola (until they burnt him). Most of them are for the ordinary brothers, though, and each has a fresco by Fra Angelica, glowing in the upper left corner of each small (not much more than 10ft square) room.
Whilst there is some variety – I particularly like the gentle depiction of the risen Christ appearing to Mary in a vibrantly verdant garden of Gethsemane, and the Adoration of the Magi in the Medici cell – a lot of the them are crucifixions, or variations thereof, complete with blood spurting and anguished faces all round. The overall effect of viewing them all, one after the other, is obscurely painful. This is unfair on the artist, though – they were never intended to be seen all at once, being created for the individual occupants of each separate cell. Did each brother express a preference, I wonder, is that why there are so many crucifixions ? If so, what does that say about the monks mental state? Not, they would of course say, their first priority…or, indeed, any priority at all.
On the way back I spend a long time in front of the Annunciation, and it’s like the sweetest draught of cool water…especially after the parched and painful deserts in many of the cells …can see it still, and will, I think, remember it for the rest of my life.
This is one of the few places in Florence that doesn’t allow you to take photographs, but even if they did I think I wouldn’t have taken one. I’m not going to dip into the vast internet ocean to find one now, either.
Just go and see for yourself.
Please.
Go and see.
For yourself.
I didn’t manage to get the scarf for my sister – got distracted on the way, and visited the Ospedale degli Innocenti, then wandered around and found various other corners of interest – you can see the photos here, if you like – but, somehow, I can’t write about that now.
Truth is, I’m still standing on the stairs, wide-eyed boy and man both (older, but hardly any wiser) staring and staring at a miracle.
