Vatican/Raphael - AHB

I supremely enjoyed the visit to the Vatican museums and the Sistine chapel. It is a staggering experience to stand under or beside these paintings that mean so much to Western society. The only disappointment was having to move so fast.
The work of art I want to talk about is Rapheal's "School of Athens".

Greek philosophy has a big part of my education. The first time I really wanted to learn (there were several years where I had little intention of going to college) was after reading "the Apology of Socrates". I feel like if all I learned from college was 1/10 of Plato's dialogues I would be content.

When we were flying through the Raphael rooms I had no idea where we were or what was going on. I easily could have overlooked the School of Athens completely, but there it stood stopping me dead in my tracks. This is one of the most beautiful works of art I have ever seen, and the composition is so alive and exciting. I love how Raphael captures these individuals in the midst of their work, almost like a snapshot of their entire lives. Plato and Aristotle provide order to the whole, just as their debate can define so much of human life. Their gestures speak a great deal; Plato points to the sky while Aristotle points out, showing their respective attitudes toward the goal of philosophical inquiry. There's a lot of material online about this piece and the different symbols within it.

Visual art has always been kind of a tricky point for me. I see music and understand it's message much more clearly, but our trip to Rome and Greece has really helped me develop my appreciation of painting and sculpting. When a story is able to constructed in a single image it is a pretty amazing thing.