October 12, 2016

When I visited Florence when I was 15 years old and first saw Michelangelo's David and the unfinished "Prisoners" it was if a jolt of electricity went through me. The Prisoners mesmerized and David overwhelmed. I couldn't believe that a block of marble could turn into flesh and blood and skin. Though my parents had taken me to museums regularly as a kid and I'd loved Monet's Water Lillies and Boccioni's The City Rises among other things at the old MOMA, it was nothing like this. I was changed forever.

Though I've been to Florence quite a few times since, I hadn't had the opportunity to revisit the Accademia until yesterday. What a fabulous treat. No, that youthful jolt didn't reappear, I come at art now with a lifetime of looking and studying behind me and that knowledge goes hand in hand with a sort of lost innocence. I always try to shed expectations before works of art, but I'm at a different stage of life so the experience is different. But these are such powerful and profoundly moving works! David is still towering over the crowds and the unfinished works seem as gut-wrenching as ever. I was particularly moved this time by the unfinished Pieta. The body of Christ seems so unbearably limp and heavy at the same time.

I'm so glad I had the opportunity to experience these works from different perspectives 48 years apart.

The biggest surprise of the day was the rest of the museum. The second floor has a collection of Florentine painting from 1370 to 1430 that is astounding, one masterpiece after another. A wonderful era, just before the Renaissance ushered in realism and perspective. Some of the images are more surreal than anything created in the 20th century. Walking through those rooms--almost empty because the crowds were all downstairs with Michelangelo--was a grand and emotionally exhausting experience.