Favourite piece of art you've seen

Horseshoe600 wrote: »

I know less than nothing about art, but I had the good fortune of taking in a trip to Rome in the pre-covid days in mid January. Walking through the Vatican I was awe-struck by the sheer volume of priceless artworks. Why it's necessary for a religious HQ to be so decorated in such a way is perhaps a question for another thread.

Yeah its astonishing the amount of priceless artwork in the Vatican. I can only imagine the sheer wealth of the Vatican in the 1500's was bankrolling thousands of sculptors and artists. iirc there is some stat that they have a total of 70,000 artworks but only 20,000 odd are on actual display. There must be secure and guarded warehouses around Rome where they just have thousands and thousands of statues packed inside gathering dust.

The highlight is when you are led into a place where you are not allowed to take photos, or to even speak. The Sistine Chapel. You're told about it, you've maybe read about, you've seen photos of it, but when you look up and you what Michaelangelo did it reinforces the view that there is actual meaning to life. What a human mind can conceive and will into reality

The Sistine is something else, absolutely incredible. I was pretty lucky to be inside it after hours when it was completely empty and we were allowed to take photos which is normally strictly forbidden. Its a funny story, the entire family were in Rome for a wedding and my mother knew a priest who knew the priest who was in charge of the entire ticketing operation for the Pope's weekly audiences on St.Peters Square. We had dubbed him Father Ticketmaster.

We met him for coffee just outside the Vatican gates and he was complaining because his accommodation in Rome was undergoing a 2 year renovation and restoration, he had to move out and his boss had given him a budget of 450k to buy an apartment in Rome. He was moaning to us that he couldnt get anything decent in Rome within walking distance of the Vatican for almost half a mill. He had bid on two places and got gazumped on both of them. I couldnt believe my ears hearing a priest come out with this estate agent talk, it definitely gave truth to the notion of the Vatican being the worlds biggest property owners.

Anyway before the Pope did his gig he brought us backstage through the dressing rooms of the Swiss guard. That was surreal, it was like a footballers dressing room with all their jester outfits and swords hung up. Just a pity we weren't allowed to take photos in there due to "national security":pac:

Then for the audience with the Pope the priest had placed us seated in the front row right up at the barriers. A crowd of several thousand were in the pen and when the Pope came along on the Popemobile next thing I knew I was getting pushed and jostled in the back by some African nuns at the barrier, I turned around and there was about 60 of them who had left their seats and were now pushing like it was a rock concert so they could get a better view of Pope Francis. Im a complete religious cycnic so it still gives me a giggle to this day. I let a couple of them in front of me to the barrier so they could get a good photo, it was gas watching them as they were completely overcome with emotion when the Pope passed by within a few metres.

Then later that evening Father Ticketmaster got us on a private tour of the Sistine Chapel. It was just my family, six businessmen in suits and a BBC radio documentary crew who were in there and we had about an hour inside. That was something else to see the ceiling without the usual crowds, they gave us little binoculars as well so you could inspect the many details of the fresco.

The whole day was just surreal, I remember going to sleep that night asking myself what the fcuk just happened. All we were expecting was for this priest to sort us out with tickets to the audience with the Pope but instead we ended up inside the Swiss guards dressing rooms and on a tour of an empty Sistine Chapel. We still slag my mother to this day saying that with Father Ticketmaster she has a direct line to the Pope :pac:

Runaways wrote: »

This reminded me we visited the quarry that the marble that David came from you can buy some of it
David was on veiled on September 8 which is also my birthday and my name is David. Serendipity or what

You're going to have to carve a miniature David from that block of marble now.