Today was full! That seems to be a theme, doesn't it? This morning we had the rare opportunity (it really is rare, tickets book months in advance, and they were full when we checked before our trip, but by calling, Aaron snagged a cancelled reservation for us) to see the cleaned and restored Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. That painting has been through a lot! He painted it onto the wall (it's not a fresco, made of actual colored cement like the Sistine Chapel) using a new technique that he made up, because he wanted to take his time, which isn't possible in the fresco medium. But sadly, within a few years, it started to fade. It was touched up and repainted many many times over the centuries to preserve its compelling beauty and expressiveness. Then, in World War II, Milan was seriously, seriously bombed. Ooooh, that all just makes me so upset. War. What is it good for? Absolutely nothin'. You know, as some would say. Anyway, during the bombing raids, the church, Santa Maria Novella, got hit. Badly. There were pictures of the church after the bombing, and it was rubble. Not one brick on another. An art preservation society had done what they could to protect it, building a wooden scaffold in front of it, but what wooden scaffold do you know of that could preserve an entire concrete wall when the bricks around it crumble? Well, it was miraculously preserved. How can that not be a miracle? During the 1990s, it was carefully cleaned, a centimeter at a time, to peel back the layers of rubble, dirt, and added paint, to return to what is left of Leonardo's original wall-painting.
Getting in there was its own adventure. We had to arrive 15 minutes early, then walk through a series of sealed rooms, where all outdoor air was sucked out and special clean air was piped in, before we could enter the room where The Last Supper still stands. It is amazing. It was worth it. I admit that I sort of wish Leonardo had just done the thing on canvas in the first place, to avoid the problems that followed, but the painting is so expressive, so spiritual, so moving, that I'm even more grateful for those who put such time and energy and tenderness into its preservation. I don't know what to say about it really, except that it captures exactly that moment just after the Savior told his apostles that one of them would betray him, and they looked at each other asking "is it I? Could it be me?" Also, I have to agree with Dan Brown on this one. Based on my knowledge of Leonardo da Vinci, there is no way that the figure beside Jesus is male. He is differentiated too much. So, agree with Dan Brown's conclusion, or don't, but Leonardo only included 11 male apostles in that painting. And also, said female figure seems already to be in the know about who the bad guy iss going to be. Interesting things to think about, and if you haven't read The Da Vinci Code, you probably should—I'm going to reread it when I get home—such a compelling read!
After that, we explored the Milan Cathedral, which could take a week all by itself. In terms of art history, that building has the whole story wrapped up in one little, er, humongous church. Begun in 1382 (I think, take all my dates here with a grain of salt), the cathedral wasn't completed until 1810. That's nearly five hundred years of construction! So though it began in an early gothic style, the cathedral's art and architecture wound their way through the Renaissance, Baroque, and neo-Classical styles, with any number of detours along the way. To read about the cathedral, you would think it was a mess of competing styles, but I didn't find it that way at all! Somehow, each artist and architect who contributed a nook, a buttress, a window, or a sculpture (there are 3000 on that thing!), seemed to share a vision of what they were working toward. The final product is vast (the fourth largest in the world, after Rome and two others), but unified. I loved exploring it corner by corner, apse by apse, and seeing what small pieces had been contributed by so many. It gave me a sense of wonder at the ability of the artists and architects to be involved in a cause larger than themselves—not quite like sacrifice, but more like contributing to a gift. It increased my own desire to seek look for opportunities to contribute to things that are greater than my own time and place in the world.
Finally, we visited La Scala! I wasn't prepared for that to be as awesome as it was! I mean, it's an opera house. And though they once were, the premiers of La Traviata and La Boheme are not happening there now. But there was an opera rehearsal in progress when we stopped in—in a way it was almost more fun to hear these huge voices coming out of people who looked so ordinary in their modern tops and jeans. It was a Romeo and Juliet (Gounod) rehearsal, and I loved watching the actors playfully embrace during their scenes to mark their way through, while their voices came out in full. Well, after watching that and touring the museum (surprisingly cool—they had Liszt's piano, though they wouldn't let me look at the keys, even though I begged. What's a piano without keys?), we wanted to come back, so we got some cheap tickets to the performance that night: a ballet called Jewels with sections by Faure, Stravinsky, and Tchaikovsky. It was too bad that it wasn't an opera, because I would have loved to have seen that, but even as it was, it was nearly as fun to look around the theatre and imagine Verdi and Toscanini on an opening night, and to envision all the hottest social set of Italy descending on La Scala for a premier. That is one place in history I would love to relive for a week or two. So what I'm saying is, although we had to stand for practically the whole performance to see what was going on (those were good dancers—without question the best I've ever seen), it was totally worth it. Especially for 10 euros each!
So I guess what I'm saying, is that sometimes it's hard to see the long-term impact of our short-term lives. I can't imagine that the builders and artists who contributed to the Milan Cathedral could really comprehend what it would eventually become. One window, laid out on a table, or wherever they created those things, could not have given much sense of the whole. But by giving little pieces, over years and years, they laid the foundation for something greater. Will I be able to contribute to something of that magnitude in my life? Probably we each have a responsibility to, and our eyes and ears need to be open to know when such an opportunity comes. Sometimes the opportunity will be within the walls of our own home, where we create the launchpad not only for our own children, but for the generations that come after them.
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