You can enlarge many of the images in this post by clicking them. High resolution versions of the images, and many more besides, are available from our online photo gallery.
Having saturated ourselves with medieval and Renaissance art, we decided to take in some modern art at the Peggy Guggenheim museum. Walking over to the museum ended up being the highlight of the day.
It started off with Barbara noticing this rather aggressive guy staring at us across the canal near our hotel. Turns out he was playing some kind of retrieval game with his master. Still, we were glad he was across the canal…even though he looked like he could leap it if he really wanted to.
We stopped by the Museo di Palazzo Mocenigo along the way to the Guggenheim. It showcases how a wealthy Venetian family — who made their fortune in the perfume biz — lived. As always, there were fun sights to take in as we walked through Venice.
We also confronted something which turned out to be fun that we hadn’t expected. Google Maps was happy to give us a walking path to the Guggenheim…but we didn’t realize it would require us to cross several canals along the way (there aren’t as many bridges over the canals, particularly the wider ones, as you might expect). Fortunately, we had enough euro coins and small denomination bills to pay the fares.
The Mocenigo was one of the odder museums we visited. I’m still not sure why the mannequins were wearing masks. Maybe that was de rigueur in those days?
Moving on from the Mocenigo, we stumbled upon a giant square. Except it’s not called a square, because in Venice, there’s only one square: St. Mark’s. All other squares are called campo…which translates to square in English.
Notice the different styles of windows. The ones on the middle building seem to incorporate what I think of as Arabic elements.
Whatever you call the giant open space we were in, it offered a nice place to take a break.
Our second canal crossing ended up giving us a taste of the Italian approach to life. The customer line was quite long because the canal we had to cross was quite wide and had a lot of traffic, slowing down the gondola taxi.
When it finally arrived, we were still far back in the line. But it turned out everyone in front of us was in one of two groups, so when it came time to fill the last two spaces a cry went up seeking couples.
We boarded the gondola to good-natured shouts of “Come through!”. Punctuated by the gondolier switching to “Pay me!” as we got closer.
When we got to the Guggenheim we stopped for a nice lunch in their cafe.
The museum itself was a bit of a disappointment. The collection didn’t seem all that large. Or maybe we’d just been so saturated with medieval and Renaiisance art that modern art was jarring.
Still, there were a number of interesting pieces. Although I rarely knew what the artist was trying to communicate to me with his/her work.
Including this guy, who was just filled with joie de vivre :).
Our next museum stop was the Gallerie dell’Accademia. As per usual, it was filled with religious art (one wonders how often medieval or Renaiisance artists produced other types of works).
Three particular subjects stuck out for me.
This first is (I’m pretty sure) Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he prayed to not have to be crucified. It’s the only passage in the New Testament where, for so far as I can recall1, his human nature is on display. Because who would want to be crucified if it could possibly be avoided?
I got a real kick out of this next painting. It shows St. Mark returning to the mortal plane to save some sinner in Alexandria. Only he does it upside down, unlike in every other depiction of a divine visitation I can recall.
But that’s guys named Mark for you. We’re always trying to do something different :).
This last painting, depicting Lazarus begging for help from the wealthy and entitled, but being ignored, also hit home. It’s an interesting commentary on certain aspects of our present society.
I was raised in Roman Catholicism, but moved past it, and all other religion, as a teenager. ↩
