Currently I am enjoying a special connection with Italy, binging on Searching for Italy with Stanley Tucci! Literally, he has become my new best friend and I am living vicariously through him until I can get there to visit again!
But for now all I can do is dream of Italy—the wine, the vineyards, the food, the coast, the cobblestone, the shopping, the history, the art, oh the art—okay I’m getting carried away, back to the point.
In Italy everything feels like art—names like Botticelli, Da Vinci, and Caravaggio role off the tongue in true Italian style, but it is the works of Michelangelo Buonarroti whose creations I find formidabile, and whose works I long to see again. For they allow one to look back through time—giving meaning and clarity to the period we call the ‘Renaissance’.
In Italy all roads lead to the Sistine, an entire chapel filled with a series of frescos and the iconic ceiling painted by the exceptionally talented Michelangelo. Like many other Italian Renaissance painters, Michelangelo used a fresco technique, meaning he applied washes of paint to wet plaster. In order to create an illusion of depth, Michelangelo would scrape off some of the wet medium prior to panting. He was the ultimate paint effect master.
The task was so enormous, that Michelangelo would eventually quit Rome, describing his project as “the tragedy of the tomb”. He was quite possibly experiencing a Renaissance form of a modern day burn-out! His pupils were left to finish the job.
With no easy access to appropriate support, Michelangelo’s burn-out was hardly surprising: no local paint shop to consult and no easy access to online information. In fact, no quick tips anywhere on how to create special effects with paint. I reckon he would have had a field day, being able to, at the click of a button, find out everything to do with colour washing, rag rolling, how to apply gold leaf and so on! Luckily, we have Resene to help out.
