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[supermatt41]

Last night I watched a really interesting documentary on National Geographic about a search for a lost fresco of Leonardo da Vinci in Florence.  In the 16th century Leonardo painted a fresco, "The Battle of Anghiari", on one of the walls of the Salone dei Cinquecento (Hall of the Five Hundred) in the Palazzo Vecchio.  He abandoned it before it was

Comments

[anita_margarita]

And that is what is so fabulous about Europe in general. Here there is no end of people whining about the cost of art and whether the art in question is suitable for small children or if the art is sufficiently respectful of their religion. Remember the kerfuffle about the Hindu Goddess in front of Old City Hall?

None of that in Europe. They preserve it because it is worthwhile.

[supermatt41]

Exactly. It exists because it has a right to. The hindu goddess in front of Old City Hall is beautiful and I'm glad they kept it, but what a fuss was made over that.

They've got a lot of things properly sorted in Europe.

[shesingsnow]

Amen.

[shesingsnow]

So beautiful. Thank you so much for posting!

[supermatt41]

Thank you for reading!

[sahlah]

Soul enriching stuff

[supermatt41]

Enriching indeed.

[bender772]

I saw that documentary and came away completely fascinated. I really hope they do get a chance to peak behind the wall. The clues are all there. Hopefully, they can figure out a way to do this without ruining the fresco potentially covering the Leonardo.

I loved the statue you posted. Haha!

[supermatt41]

It wasn't really clear the exact reason why they stopped everything, but you're right, all the clues are there. This isn't something that can really be ignored and I'm sure the documentary can help bring some attention to the issue.

When I first saw that statue, I stood there staring at it saying to myself, "Is he holding...wow, he IS holding it!"

[yummydeb]

Ok firstly I had to do some masterpiece-digging of my own because in my LJ view your writing is invisible. Seriously. Did you do that on purpose, you clever clogs, you?

Anyway, once I highlighted the entire post (and stopped giggling at the wenus-grabber) I saw what you were talking (er, writing) about. We always try to catch these documentaries too, Sem has a degree in art history so it's right up his alley. And I just like the pretties!

I'm always so glad that there are still cities and places in the world where they don't just knock shit down and put up a Walmart. Rather they preserve their precious architecture/works of art/ruins of one kind or another, and the world benefits. On a much smaller scale, it's one of the things I love about living here. You wouldn't believe how many ruins of old houses from the Clearances era and even farther back survive out in the country. People build houses on the same bits of land, but usually next to the old tumble-down cottages... not on top of them. It's lovely.

[supermatt41]

I could not for the life of me get the post to stop doing the white on white thing! I wrote the posting elsewhere and cut and pasted it into LJ and this is what happened. Stupid thing! If you see the page on my blog and not on your friends feed, it should look okay. What a pain.

In Florence they have a law that buildings in the historical district cannot change their paint color. Whatever color it has been is the color it will always be. I love the continuity of that, the preservation of that world into modern times. One thing that breaks my heart living in California is our inclination to tear everything down and build something new. It's a horrible practice and we've lost so many things we can't ever get back. There's no vision or sense of history and it's such a waste.