Skipped a Day!

Oops! In the midst of yesterday's goings-ons I neglected to update!

No field studies yesterday sadly, so I woke up for two hours of Baroque in a dark room without coffee. The first hour was a struggle but after a little espresso from the machine downstairs the second hour flew by. It could also have to do with the discovery of a new favorite artist. My new friend's name is Guido Reni but first let me gush about Annibale Carracci his teacher. Annibale was a good little boy and painted perfectly acceptable altarpieces for the church during the Counter-Reformation. He colored in the lines and got good commissions... but that's the boring stuff. His informal/genre work is where he experiments with big loose brushstrokes and atypical representations of poor people for his time. When I first saw the slide in class I thought it was impressionistic!

Assumption of the Virgin
boring but pays the bills

The Beaneater

The Butcher Shop

You can see the extreme differences between his commissioned pieces for churches and altars and the work he did on his own, observing human nature. We compared the realistic feel of these works with the precise depictions in Caravaggio's paintings. Both show reality or naturalism but in different ways.

Back to Guido Reni! He was Annibale's favorite student and learned quickly. He depicted reality in a way similar to Caravaggio but had a flair of elegance in his works. He liked the classical poses etc. When he painted the human figure though he was really fleshy in his depiction. Basically his works are like Baroque without the headache. They are balanced and classical and brightly colored without being over the top. I love it. Sadly my favorite work from class, Aurora, is in a building that is now the French Embassy so it's really hard to get in and see it.

The Trinity of the Prilgrims

A close up of the same

Aurora

 I am fascinated with this artist. I hope we get to visit some of his work in person next week. After Baroque I had my short one hour class with Forma Urbis. This week we are studying the Imperial Forum (Snoble that's the random tall walls you could see from your apartment!). There are five fori I believe because each emperor wanted to be remembered and thank their favorite god.  Of course my teacher knows his stuff and makes the class interesting and informative. I love this class but studying for my midterm next week might be the death of me. SO MUCH INFORMATION! I just keep doing the readings and taking notes and hope I can retain it all. For our field study on Thursday Gianni told us to wear sturdy shoes or boots, bring a poncho or rain jacket, and our flashlights. We will be going into a tunnel under the Via dei Fori Imperiali which was an ancient road and is now a modern one. In this tunnel are chunks of marble and stone from the temples and buildings in the fori that haven't been excavated or explored much yet and we are going to have to climb over these. The ponchos aren't very exciting, the weather is supposed to be rainy. But I'm looking forward to this adventure!

After my classes I came home and finished up my pasta with sausage red sauce. Thank you Mattly for showing me the stand at the market where they sell the yummiest sausage! Protein doesn't come easily to the Italian diet quite like carbs do so I look for ways to eat not very expensive nuts or meat or diary. I did more homework and got the chance to skype with Ekatz all the way from Australia!! Silly girl was supposed to be writing a paper and then going to bed because it was very late for her, but we hadn't talked in five months or so and just enjoyed chatting for an hour. She's having a wonderful time and has been there for over two months! Can't wait to be living with my friends back at IC and sharing our recipes and stories from abroad. After talking with Emily it was time for Italian class. I got my test back and only really slipped up on two points (si impersonale plurals and my -ere verbs decided to take the day off I suppose). My teacher thinks I am doing well but is going to help me with my written Italian by having me email her with stories using the different tenses. I hope this smooths out the wrinkles in my writing. Speaking is just dandy for me but the grammar and writing has always been a challenge.

After Italian I came home and decided to go for a run. I haven't been active for a couple days and was starting to get antsy. Just a jog down to Tiber Island and back, nothing fancy but I should do it more often. I feel better after I exercise. A quick shower then more homework. I also had to email Meredith because she just booked her trip to Rome for my 21st birthday in November and wanted to confirm my visit to see her in Scotland over fall break (that's this month!). For dinner Nico invited Carolina over, another ISC who went to Riccardo Tre with us. Nico "taught" us (read as: prepared while we watched) a pasta carbonara recipe. She started chopping something and it looked like it could be some fancy kind of cheese, I asked what it was...... bacon. The thick slab of bacon I've ever seen!! So she put bacon and onions in a pan with oil while the pasta was cooking. In a bowl Carolina stirred eggs and grated cheese and pepper like she was making an omelette. Nico then drained the pasta and put in the pan with the bacon and onion and added the egg mixture on top and tossed it all together. The eggs cooked and the smell of bacon was in the air. The food was fantastic and so easy! Isotta wants us to make her breakfast for dinner sometime this week, pancakes and eggs and bacon and waffles and all sorts of stuff. Because they don't eat breakfast Italians don't eat pancakes. So that will be happening this weekend.

Small kitchen, lots of fun

Bacon

After dinner a couple people sat down to watch an Italian murder mystery tv show that Nico likes (on a laptop because our tv has yet to function). I was interested but right before I sat down I got a skype call! So I skyped in the other room catching up with friends who all have real school work and tests and hard homework... it's all so strange to me after a few weeks of art history and italian. I also emailed my dad while I was on skype. I am the horrible daughter who remembered yesterday that I missed my parents anniversary. Oops. When I finished the skype call I looked at my computer clock which read 6:45pm. This is Pittsburgh time. That meant it was almost 1am and I had to be all the way down by the Colosseum at 9:30am.... not enough time. So I quickly shut everything down and went to sleep. A busy but delightful day.