Around and About: Finding Art and Vindictive Penguins

As promised here are some photos of some graffiti I've found on my trip so far. Some of it I liked because of the unique characters that looked like something I would draw, or just for the fact that they seemed to make a statement about European culture.

Close to the sign with an arrow through a one euro coin, we came across this more recognizable symbol of Cupid's arrow. Hmm... a statement about love and money perhaps? I'm going to be on the look out and see if there are more signs like this.

Like I said, I always enjoy stumbling across this artist's work. This one is close to the other man carrying the sign, except notice the small wings attached to his back. I wonder if another artist came in and added them or if it's a different design by the same artist? If it was a joint collaboration it wouldn't be too different from some of the Renaissance artists in the bigger, more acclaimed galleries such as the Uffizi and Galleria Accademia. 

A cool character.

On our walk, we came across Dante's Alley which contained his church and his house that he stayed in when he lived in Florence. One of the best things about walking around this city is the opportunity that walking blindly provides. You find cool excursions like this one that you never knew about, which make it much better than setting out with a map and finding it with a plan in mind.

Dante's house

Maybe the Mafia at one point claimed Dante's house as their rendezvous point?

I liked this one because it seemed at one point to be a full panel with women (that look a lot like Picasso's 'Demoiselles') but it is fading either from someone scrubbing it off or just from it being painted on the wall for so long. It reminded me that the walls of Florence, while they provide a white canvas for many artists, can be reused and reused for centuries since the art will disappear and be painted over for thousands of years to come. Florence really is an artist's dream place. 

We stumbled into a book store where I found a very interesting, very enticing comic book called "La Stanza" (The Room) by Lorenzo Mattotti. Unlike most graphic novels this one has no words and is the same setting (a bedroom) with two lovers lying on their bed in various positions, some with clothes, some with not, some sleeping, some drinking coffee and talking- all done in various shades of pencil. This immediately went on my Amazon wishlist once I got back home.

Another great comic book we found was called "La Lunga Marcia Dei Pinguini Bastardi" (The Long March of the Bastard Penguins). If you've ever looked at the Suicidal Bunnies comic books, this one is done in the same manner- wordless, simple one page comics that often depict something terrible (yet incredibly funny) being done by a cute furry animal- in this case, penguins. There were many that caught our eyes as we flipped through the book...

The Duomo in the daytime.

This one pretty much explains itself, but I thought it was pretty cool that some graffiti artists are staying up to date with news and politics and putting their voices out on the walls of the streets. This one is very close to our apartment, so I see it almost every day and sure enough, it makes me think about the Wikileaks situation. If art is meant to make provoke people to think about social issues, then I'd say this artist did a pretty good job.

There are buggies that take people all around the city. This horse was taking a break and chowing down on some oats in the middle of the piazza dell Duomo.

Another cool profile face.

Peace

 I will have more graffiti to show soon as there is an abundance here and in other towns. I will probably post one of all the paintings I have seen in the galleries (Of course, they don't have pictures so they'll probably just be from the Internet) but it will give you an idea of what I'm seeing and what I'm thinking. Until then, chi vediamo dopo (See you later).

Calm Streets in Sienna

Over the weekend, all the students and our professors, Jodi and Tom (Magister) Sienkewicz took us on a day trip to Sienna. We visited a few chapels, the Duomo and the Museum dell' Opera where we could see the whole city of Sienna and the rolling green hills behind it. Here are some pictures:

One of the first things we all noticed about Sienna is it's smaller proximity and it's bright terra cotta buildings. There is barely any graffiti on the buildings (I did discover some; the pictures further on down) and the city was extremely quiet for a Saturday afternoon. We arrived in the morning when it was gray in the sky, but as we trekked through the city and went into the Cathedral of St. Catherine (where there was a replication of her head sitting at one of the alters) the sky opened up and became quite nice.

Here's the view right outside the Cathedral of St. Catherine. 

These huge torches were outside the cathedral and dated back to pre-Renaissance times.

These arches in the alleyways give you an idea of how small and narrow the streets really are. They are almost as narrow as some of them ones in Florence.

Sienna is a city built upon three hills so as you can imagine the entire place is full of long winding roads that lead up up up and up. Here is Hannah attempting to catch up with us on our way to the Duomo. 

Along with my obsession with the street art in Italy, I have also discovered a fondness for the small cars that voom all around the plazas and tiny alleyways. Here's one that literally 'puttered' its way from the Duomo.

Outside the Duomo, this restorationist was working on putting a cracked piece of the floor back into the engraving. He had a variety of tools and was sanding away at some of the stone, chiseling it back into place.

This is on the floor inside the Duomo. It depicts Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, being nursed by a mother wolf. We saw this image a lot throughout the day.

The first Donotello sculpture on this trip!

A terrible picture looking up into the dome.

SUCCESS! Way to go Restoration Man!

The crest of the Medici. Found almost everywhere.

Going up! Inside the Museum dell' Opera, we found a staircase that took us to the top of the building, high above the city buildings. The staircase was narrow, as you can see, but it was worth the tight squeeze to see Sienna's beautiful landscape.

Look at the world! It's huge!

What amazed me most about this view was how far the hills rolled. It really put a perspective as to how small the city really is.

Believe it or not Duff beer does exist and is extremely popular amongst the Europeans. Jamie and I have made a note to try some soon.

Piazza dell Campo was one of the coolest plazas yet. We ate lunch here and shopped around at a few stores. There were a lot of kids running around chasing pigeons and parents watching them. There were couples lying on the warm ground relaxing with lunch and gelato. A very soothing place to sit and relax.

Hannah diverted from our group and where did we find her? A jewelry store having a sale. She didn't even notice us staring at her from outside the window.

I went into a bookstore and found some pretty funny children's books, such as this one called "AHHHH! The Dentist! No!" Apparently, it's about a superhero bunny that doesn't want to go to the dentist.

A cool pop-up book of Alice in Wonderland.

There was this awesome dog just sitting in the bookstore. He didn't move, even when we took pictures of him or walked past him. I think this is because he was looking at the Dog section in the bookstore (See below)

Sienna in the evening.

Piazza dell Campro in the evening. People were still out and about, relaxing in the remainder of the sunlight.

Gotta love that sky.

One last cool car to end this busy exciting day.