Photo Essay: A Telephoto Lens in the Vatican Museum

I can not begin to do justice to the Vatican Museum. We made the mistake of going there immediately after our overnight flight , and we were way too exhausted to take full advantage of the smorgasboard of delights spread so abundantly before us. I wanted to just be able to sit in a room, and without the hundreds of other tourists who were blocking my view (and my pictures), and take the art in slowly as I surveyed the entire room one sector at a time. It seemed incongrous in the midst of such beauty to be herded almost like cattle in throngs moving down the wide halls. You were almost carried by the crowd, and when I would want to look up at the magnificent ceilng, much less stop to take a picture, I risked being run over. It is impossible for the situation to be ideal in the midst of such beauty and so many persons trying to absorb it all as you are sent through almost an assembly line of continuous stations of art. My goal was to get to the Sistine ceiling. Certainly not my only goal, but I wanted to be sure my trip to Rome included this testimony to the endurance and creativity of Michaelangelo.

If you go, you will see signs saying, "To the Sistine Chapel." Do not make the mistake of thinking you are close. We must have walked over an hour past a series of those signs before we arrived at this jewel of human achievement. No photography was allowed there, not even with your flash turned off. There was a guard rather loudly chastising, "Silencio, Silencio" to anyone who even whispered. It actually seemed more reverent in the places where you did not feel like you were in trouble with the teacher and about to be put in the dunce's corner.

Except that the Sisitine Ceiling itself is reverent, and no guard could take that away. To think that Michelangelo did this masterpiece because the Pope ordered him to and he didn't really want to, adds to our disbelief. I think his mama must have taught him that "If it's worth doing, it is worth doing right." I recently read a report that said there is a universal manual signal of disgust incorporated in the great ceiling which was intended for the Pope. It is not the usual we Westerners think of, but something called a 'fig,' more common in European circles. I'll leave it to you to google that little tidbit.

I found this poem written by Michelangelo himself, and I thought I should include it as an additional tribute to the personal sacrifices Michelangelo suffered to gift all of us with his genius.

I've grown a goiter by dwelling in this den-
As cats from stagnant streams in Lombardy,
Or in what other land they hap to be-
Which drives the belly close beneath the chin:
My beard turns up to heaven; my nape falls in,
Fixed on my spine: my breastbone visibly
Grows like a harp: a rich embroidery
Bedews my face from brush drops thick and thin.
My loins into my paunch like levers grind:
My buttock like a crupper bears my weight;
My feet unguided wander to and fro;
In front my skin grows loose and long; behind
By bending it becomes more taut and straight;
Crosswise I strain me like a Syrian bow:
Whence false and quaint, I know,
Must be the fruit of squinting brain and eye;
For ill can aim the gun that bends awry.
Come then, Giovanni, try
To succor my dead pictures and my fame;

Since foul I fare and painting is my shame
-Michelangelo

So there were issues in the Vatican Museum, but, all things considered, it was still magnificent. Your mind almost has to re-invent itself just to be able to make space for the uncountable stimuli of beauty. It is almost too much. All I knew to do was just to slow down and try to focus on one sector at a time, or I ended up feeling like I had seen nothing. It was rather like our family reunions where there are fifty of us, and I come away feeling like I saw everybody, but, alas, I didn't really see anybody.

When you are in a room where every window, every inch of the walls and floor and ceiling is a symphony of art, sometimes you need to just let the oboe or violin speak to you without the other voices. Even when the beauty and art is so splendid, it almost verges on a cacophony inside your mind unless you slow down and let each voice speak. Use a telephoto lens in your mind's eye and help yourself calm the competing images by viewing one element at a time.

Of course, you will never see it all, but you wouldn't any way. Of course, you also appreciate the complex panoply of painting, sculpture, tapestry, stained glass, mosaic, tile, and all the surprise niches with yet another figure. But slow down, separate some portions of the treasure and be amazed at the jewels that will be revealed one by one.