Art Archives - wash your language

Irish Creatures on Irish Coins

January 12, 2020 by EmmaP Leave a Comment

It’s true – your children really can open your world a little wider. A treasure, to them, is often something you just never noticed before.

One recent Sunday, at a local Dublin market that has barely changed in decades, my daughter and I wandered into a bric-a-brac stand. Just the place where a 10-year-old might find some pocket-money-sized treasure.

She dug into a box of old coins, becoming more excited the deeper she got, the rustier her fingers. Settling on a handful of coins, the kind owner let her have them for nothing: “I’m actually happy to be rid of those”, he smiled.

Her treasure – an old Irish penny and halfpenny – did not exactly glitter in her hand. But as she looked closely at them, so did I, amazed at their beautiful design and seeing properly for the first time the money my own mother would have handled as a child.

The ha’penny depicts a pig, or, rather, a sow. We looked closely at the little curly tails of the babies underneath their mum, a jumble of clumsy feet tottering together.

And the mother hen on the penny – what a piece of art she is, standing tall as she herds her little darlings entwined around her short legs. The Irish mammy as hen.

Back at home I search online for the story of these coins, so new to me, but so familiar to the entire country from the 1920s to 1971, the year that Ireland went decimal. This system of shillings, farthings and crowns that I never needed to get my head around.

And I’m amazed to learn that the coins were designed by an Englishman, a sculptor named Percy Metcalfe. He was chosen by a government committee set up in 1926 to develop a coinage for the brand new Irish Free State. The currency was to be pegged to Sterling. This made sense, seeing as 90% of our exports would go to Britain for decades to come, but we could at least make our coins look as unique as possible. The head of this coin committee was none other than poet-slash-Senator W.B.Yeats and it was he who pushed for choosing Irish animals; asking “what better symbols could we find for this horse riding, salmon fishing, cattle raising country?“

The committee had three conditions for the coins’ design. They should have a harp on one side, an inscription in Irish, and include no depictions of modern persons.

The lowliest coins, and presumably the ones most commonly used, show the sow of the ha’penny and hen of the penny, with an elegant woodcock on the farthing.

The choice of something as domestic as a hen was deliberate. The committee felt it would appeal to farmers, and particularly to their “wives and daughters”.

As the coins increase in value, so too does their male-ness. There’s the upstanding hare on the threepence (or, thru’penny bit), the magnificent wolfhound of the sixpence and on up to the shilling’s quasi-mythical bull.

The two-shilling (or florin) has a wise-looking salmon, but lording over all these creatures is the royal Irish beast, the horse on the half-crown. Most impressive of all, is the rare 10-shilling, a piece that depicts the death of Cu Chulainn – the ultimate meeting of animal, man and myth; Irish-style.

The new Irish coins appeared in 1928 and were a hit (as much as anything ever is in Ireland).

Maud Gonne was not a fan and declared that “the coins were entirely suitable for the Free State: designed by an Englishman, minted in England, representative of English values, paid for by the Irish people”.

The choice of harp on the obverse was quite revolutionary, being something of a snub to the monarch’s head which was depicted on all other Commonwealth coins. But an even bigger deal for many in Ireland was the lack of any Christian symbol. Some on the committee felt that any religious symbol might annoy the Ulster Unionists or, at the very least, turn the coins into religious medals instead of public tender.

That didn’t stop one anonymous critic (probably a priest, according to the Irish Independent) declaring:

If these pagan symbols once get a hold, then is the thin edge of the wedge of Freemasonry sunk into the very life of our Catholicity, for the sole object of having these pagan symbols instead of religious emblems on our coins is to wipe out all traces of religion from our minds, to forget the ‘land of saints,’ and beget a land of devil-worshippers, where evil may reign supreme

Our own penny and ha’penny treasures now sit, with all their history, in my
daughter’s collection of kopecs and francs, crowns and toonies. I hope that she will manage to keep them safe and share them with her own daughter one day.

Gargoyles and Angels in Armagh

July 30, 2019 by EmmaP 1 Comment

I just spent an entire week in Armagh – at the wonderful John Hewitt Summer School – but it wasn’t until my last day that I spotted an odd detail on the streets. It’s an elegant Georgian/Victorian city and I had already noticed the footscrapers set into the wall next to the fine doorways, but this little flash of bronze seemed both out of place, and clearly meant to be there.

Some of us from the festival – well up for a fresh walk around the town after a week of full-on talks, workshops and performances – took a guided tour from the tourist office. And the first thing our guide drew our attention to was the trail of 22 of these little bronze figures dotted around the streets of Armagh.

The one above is actually biting a coin, as he’s placed outside the Bank of Ireland on English Street (note the typical Northern Irish contrast of names there). And he’s a gargoyle, of sorts. Probably inspired by the creative creatures carved high up in the exterior of the cathedral up the way, St Patrick’s cathedral, and I’ll go off on a tangent here for a minute.

The cathedral dates back to the 13th century on the site of where St Patrick himself first set up a church in the 5th century, which led to the establishment of Armagh as the ecclesiastical capital of the island of Ireland. That cathedral is now Anglican (Church of Ireland) but there’s also a St Patrick’s Catholic cathedral further up the town. And both the Anglican and Catholic archbishops have their seat in the city. Of course. It would be like having two Archbishops of Canterbury, but, again, this is Ireland/Northern Ireland and things are quite particular here.

There are some interesting faces and creatures dotted around the cathedral’s exterior, and it turns out that Brian Boru – last of Ireland’s high kings, killed in 1014 – is buried somewhere in the walls.

So, back to these gargoyles and angels. It was too bad I didn’t have my kids with me to take us on this bronzey hide and seek of Armagh, but I had managed fine without them all week already. The German sculptor, Holger Christian Lonze, who created the sequence of 22 mythical creatures in 2006 placed them in very specific locations around town.

Like this fella holding up a paper outside the old newspaper office.

This one was sitting in an alcove above the Night Safe in the wall outside Danske Bank (on, ahem, Scotch Street).

Others gargoyles include one propped into the entrance way to the Market Place theatre, nervously holding a ticket while waiting for its date, and another with a knapsack on his back as he escapes away from the orchard garden below the cathedral. Sorry I couldn’t take photos of them.

And there are angels. But they all seem to float more vertically and are harder to photograph (no bad thing). One very beautiful angel sounds a horn in the shape of a famous iron age trumpet found at nearby Navan Fort.

This angel below is laden down with books on the wall outside the Robinson Library – one of the most beautiful libraries in the country and which I’ll have to come back and visit, at least to see the original copy of Gulliver’s Travels.

As well as pointing out some of the less obvious bronzes to us and saying hi to the Dean of the cathedral and most everyone else around the town, our tour guide told us a variety of old stories which mostly centred on women who had apparently done very bad things: time for a little revisionism, I wondered to myself.

Armagh also has one of the country’s best planetariums, the famous Armagh Pipers Club, and a number of other festivals for cider, music and more music. It’s well worth a visit, especially with kids.

Here’s a link to Visit Armagh’s page on the gargoyles and angels scupltures and trail.

That wasn’t so boring (part 3) – Ytalia sculpture show at Forte Belvedere

September 13, 2017 by EmmaP Leave a Comment

Reflecting balls… smelly sculptures… discussion on life and death… views over Florence… one gigantic skeleton.

This is what you’ll get on a visit with your kids to Ytalia, the contemporary sculpture show at Florence’s Forte Belvedere. It’s only on for until October 1st but now is the perfect time to visit, in this cooler weather and before school gets busy. There’s even a temporary bus service running to it from outside the Pitti Palace.

I was flipping through my photos from our visit there in June and I remembered how much fun we had, all of us! I’ll share below some images and reflections on what the kids enjoyed most about the art.

This is the 3rd in my series on visiting art with kids in Florence – the others were about the Bill Viola show (now closed) at Palazzo Strozzi and tips on visiting the ancient church of San Miniato al Monte.

Forte Belvedere

High up on a hill south of Florence, you can walk here from San Niccolò, over from Piazzale Michelangelo or through the back of the Boboli Gardens.

There’s plenty of trivia to impress your kids child about this old fort along Florence’s city walls:

It was partly designed by Michelangelo and by Buontalenti (inventor of gelato). The Medici used to stash their treasure here. Galileo (whose home and observatory are on the nearby hill of Arcetri) made some discoveries here. It’s full of secret passageways, not many of which you can explore now but you can still feel the atmosphere. And of course, it’s also where Kanye West and Kim Kardashian were married in 2014.

There is a basic bar/café inside, prices are reasonable and the surroundings pretty darn nice.

Safety

Keep a close eye on your kids here: there are some high walls and passageways and a plaque at the west entrance marks where two people fell to their death in recent years.

What is Ytalia?

It’s a show of contemporary Italian sculpture (100 pieces by 12 artists) spread all over Florence, with the main part here at Forte Belvedere.

Forte Belvedere is an ideal location for outdoor sculpture – and for kids. There are indoor and outdoor spaces, a cafe, and lots of space to move around and nooks and crannies to explore.

Ytalia highlights, according to my kids.

“The Big Skeleton”, official name Calamita Cosmica (Cosmic magnet)

How did it get here? How did they put it together again? What’s it made from? Look, there’s dust – like you get from real bones. What’s the pointing thing sticking out of its arm, is it meant to be there? What’s it got to do with a magnet? What does cosmic mean?

As we were looking at it (and at other people trying to catch the perfect angle) we watched one exhibition guard rush up to the other to point out some pigeon poop on it. They call someone on the walkie-talkie to get advice, but no-one seems to know what to do.

*Gino de Dominicis – Calamita cosmica (Cosmic magnet)*

The artist, Gino de Dominicis was quite a mysterious figure and died in 2007 at the age of just 51. The sculpture is 28 metres long and weighs about 8 tons.

Jumping stones

Yes, you can step up on these and jump off them again! That’s what the artist wants you to do. The piece is actually called “Where the stars come a little bit closer” so maybe this is a humble effort to help us all reach the stars.

Once you’ve done that a few times, you’ll probably want to go on to something else. Depending on the ages of your kids.

Me, jumping. *Giovanni Anselmo – Dove le stelle si avvicinano di una spanna in più*

The Marble Benches

We had been watching the guards steer people away from other artworks so one of us was therefore especially preoccupied with these marble benches. They looked inviting to sit on and it was only when we looked down at them from high up inside the Fort, did we see people sitting on them. So if you go, make sure to sit on them.

*Domenico Bianchi – Undici Panchine (11 Benches)*

Mummy, Mummy, come and see this one!

What is it about kids and balls? Was it the reflections in this one that made it their favourite? The broken glass, the thought that someone else had got a chance to smashing something up?

*Giulio Paolini – Dopo la Fine (After the End)*

They also loved this coiled steel rope on the floor – called Continuous Infinite Present (though most of the titles didn’t mean that much to them). This reminded us of ropes along a harbour wall, but they’re not coiled up, they’re like rings.

“I’m imagining those biggest rings could be the rings of a giant. Imagine how big that giant would need to be?”

*Remo Salvadori – Continuo Infinite Presente (Continuous Infinite Present)*

We drifted past various pieces and I let the kids stop at what interested them. Most pieces had long notes beside them in Italian and English, but they were at a pretty high level and best suited to someone with a passing knowledge of art theory.

The daughter whose thumb appears below, had been doing a lot of geometry at school all year (in Italy it’s a separate class to mathematics). I could see she was trying to measure something with her thumb but she didn’t want to explain what it was.

We talked about sculpture

What makes sculpture art? How is it different to drawing or painting? Do you make it before you know how big the exhibition space is going to be? How do you build it?

Smelly sculpture

Are you meant to walk around sculpture or touch it or smell it? Actually this piece below did send out a smell as well as a sound – the sound of a frog. I had to read the information plaque to start explaining this one.

*Marco Bagnoli – Ascolta il flauto di canna (Listen to the reed flute)*

Me: Because the artist thinks a frog represents metamorphosis. Hmm, this is getting confusing.

Daughter: But I know what that means, when one thing turns into another. Like a caterpillar that turns into a butterfly.

Both: But what’s that got to do with these stones and the big pointy thing?

Me: But look at that fabulous view over to San Miniato al Monte!

We enjoyed watching these two Frenchmen carefully examining this piece – and the guard shouting at them to leave it alone, in Italian and then in English, while they completely ignored him. Called Zephyr (like the god of wind) we liked how the stone looks so heavy though it’s all about wind and air.

This piece, a self portrait by artist Alighiero Boetti, was really popular with photographers. We talked about why it was placed right there, as if the man were walking away from the building and not towards it. Where was he going?

Because this part of the fort has the best views, Mum.

I’ve read a few comments that the 12 artists in the show are all men.

Taking photographs

This exhibition is pure Instagram fodder. It’s hard to resist pointing a camera in and around these three-dimensional creative pieces as well as the location with its fabulous views over the city and the countryside to the south. I have to admit I’d much rather see more people look first before they point and shoot, especially kids who already spend enough time with their screens. But it’s hard to deny that the outdoor space is especially good for working on some photo techniques together – light, composition, background, people, waiting for the ideal shot.

If nothing else, have fun!

The Ytalia exhibition runs around Florence until October 1st 2017. Website info here.

That wasn’t so boring (part 2) – Video Renaissance

July 6, 2017 by EmmaP Leave a Comment

For a completely different family art experience in Florence – and a perfect way to cool off – check out the Bill Viola show at Palazzo Strozzi. It’s only on for two more weeks, closing on July 23rd.

Hang on, you say. Go to see contemporary video art? By an American (albeit with an Italian name)? In the city of the Renaissance?

This is the 2nd in my series on visiting Florence’s cultural sights with kids. The 1st was on San Miniato al Monte up on the top of the hill.

Why visit an exhibition at the Strozzi?

Palazzo Strozzi is literally a cool building which since the 15th century has been one of the most public palazzi in the city with an airy courtyard and a monumental size that kids love.
They specialise in interesting exhibitions of contemporary art that usually have a connection to Florence, to the Renaissance and to the building’s spaces.
With your ticket you can borrow a Family Kit for free, full of clever ideas to move kids through the show, one piece at a time. It’s in English! You just need to give them a piece of ID.
You can also borrow an audio guide, which is usually very good, and portable stool.
Each show is carefully designed – the exhibition staff get stylish new locally-tailored outfits and the kit bag is created anew for each show.
Check the Strozzi website for other family activities, like group workshops and tours.
If the show is popular (like the terrific Ai WeiWei earlier this year) you can buy advance tickets online, like a family ticket, and skip the queue.
The main exhibition is upstairs and all the extras are usually downstairs, worth including if you can.
Later this year there’ll be a Marina Abramovic show, which is bound to be thought-provoking.

The Family Kit

This is a bag (beautifully made by local leather maker Il Bisonte) usually containing sketchbooks, pencils, props like a flashlight, and other elements to make kids think, invent, and explore the exhibition and the space. Each exhibition has a different kit but it’s always well thought-out and has a lot to offer (and which other Florence museums could really pay attention to).

It’s meant for kids over 3 and the youngest can at least scribble with pencils and paper. There should be something for every age group in it. Boys and girls!

My two girls sketching at the Ai Wei Wei show (it was winter)

I’ll say it again, the kit is free! The kids might not use everything in it but it will be enough to let them see that they can find their own way into enjoying the art on show.

You can actually view the family kit guidebook on the Strozzi website. Useful before or after your visit.

There is also a “Drawing Kit” which the grownups can borrow, and view in advance on the site.

Viewing video art with kids

I’m an art history graduate, but video art has never been at the top of my list. Really… never. Typically at an exhibition you’ll find a video piece mixed in with paintings, sculptures, and other random pieces and when you encounter a video piece, maybe a projection in a tented-off corner, you have to make a conscious choice to stop and take the time to view it: for 3 minutes and 20 seconds, or, God forbid, 30 minutes! And with kids? It probably won’t have any kind of story and who knows what strange and scary images might appear.

But with how this exhibition was presented, I was really impressed by Bill Viola. What I learned here was how the elements of time and movement (and sound) are central to video art, making it a different but complementary art form.

Unlike so much fast-moving imagery that our kids see in animated movies and video games –where patience is not necessary, and parental hovering is often required – I love how a child who can get into this show will see and think about how the same medium, moving images, can be used in a completely different way.

Each room here contains just one artwork – typically the video piece along with its referring Renaissance painting.

The Family Kit made all the difference with slowing down our passage from room to room. As well as a notebook and pencils it had a fan to blow wind on your face, a flashlight, textiles to help you feel textures – to be used alongside the relevant artworks.

In the case of this show, I thought the images were all appropriate; there was no obvious violence or sexuality, and even though images included ideas like a person being engulfed by fire, my kids could see right away that it was of a different nature: a visual trick, or a different way of telling an idea. It was only after leaving the show that we noticed many of the figures were nude – but it seemed no more disconcerting that any number of paintings or sculptures at the Uffizi.

There is definitely a historical-religious element, not just the Christianity that is so central to Renaissance art, but other elements of spirituality and expression. You might need to explain or discuss some of the stories, but you’d be surprised what stories the kids have already picked up.

These are big life (and death) issues on show here, and not much that’s funny. But many kids will really relate to that and it can only make them think.

Disclaimer: my younger daughter (8) skipped through most of it with my husband, she was a little unnerved by the darkened rooms and slow-moving images. She had enjoyed the Ai WeiWei show.

Who is Bill Viola?

Bill Viola was born in New York to Italian parents. He lived for a few years in Florence in the 1970s and was involved in avant-garde video and performance art – like invading photos taken by tourists around town: an early photobomber.

Viola was also very taken by how images from the Renaissance permeate not just the museums but also churches, streets and houses. He gives the example of an old woman on his street who would leave flowers every day at a street corner altar with a Madonna, an act that had been happening for hundreds of years.

He’s one of the world’s leading video artist, is practically mainstream, and was described early on as an electronic painter. As I mentioned I’m not a video art fan but I found this work all so relevant to Florence, to our world, and very moving.

“He confronts death and the tragic anguish of life.. with projection rather than representation” – Anna Morettini, Director of Etrillard Foundation

The Strozzi Exhibition

The first thing the Viola show gets right is its size. 14 rooms are devoted to a few more than 14 pieces, making it easier to concentrate. It’s bared-down, simple and easy to see what the main focus should be and to move on. There are other pieces at locations around the city but the Strozzi is the main show.

The second thing is the concept – this show was built around Viola’s relationship to and inspiration from Renaissance art. And the inspiration, if not specific then at least stylistic, is placed in the room beside his piece.

The pictures below were taken by me with my iPhone – they’re like stills and cannot convey the movement and depth from experiencing the video in motion. But they give you a sense of the painterly quality of the works, how they give us room to discuss together how they related to the earlier paintings.

As Martin Holman in the Florentine says: “Viola does not restage these older images. Instead he demonstrates what happens when they are absorbed and transformed in the mind”

If the kids follow the little guide in the kit, they’ll get a quick background to each work.

Here are the key pieces we enjoyed.

The Visitation

Viola’s piece recreates the meeting of the pregnant Mary with her cousin Elizabeth, slowing it down and making it even more ambiguous.

When he first saw Pontormo’s painting, Viola wondered what the artist had taken to create such colours.

The Family Kit includes a fan, to let you feel the breeze that you can visibly see in the video version.

Catherine’s Room

The room containing this meditation series is so lovely. Any child can see quickly the visual relationship between the 14th century St Catherine in the lower part of this painting by Andrea di Bartolo going through the motions of her day. In the four separate Viola videos, a woman is shown to us in her own private space, it could be a convent, or a prison, while the seasons changing outside the window.

These video pieces open themselves up in a way that painting or photography is not able to, offering another dimension into the subject or the atmosphere or the story around the story.

The Deluge

Talk about knowing the ending in advance. My daughter insisted on sitting out the full 30 minutes of this – watching the people and bustle around this building build up very slowly until the expected flood happened. The last 5 minutes or so did drag as the street and building dried off. But when you think about it, there’s nothing quite like sitting in a room with other people watching flickering images on a screen…

It was interesting to see Paolo Uccello’s wierd but much-loved Flood fresco juxtaposed against it.

Emergence

This is the exhibition’s “brand image”, seen on billboards, bus tickets and airport baggage carousels.

This may or may not be the lifeless body of Christ coming out of the tomb and then lowered to the ground by two emotional women. Or they could be midwives, present at a birth. My kids were mostly amazed by the colour of the man’s skin.

The slow-motion contortions and positions of the three persons move slowly into recognisable positions from well-known paintings – from Piero della Francesco to David’s Death of Marat. And we talked about how they seemed to dance.

Adam and Eve, Man/Woman

I loved these pieces – first of all because the amazing Lucas Cranach paintings were right there on the wall (borrowed from the Prado) and are so very beautiful in themselves. And around the corner was Viola’s take: two single narrow vertical screens, one of a man and one of a woman, each of them individually evaluating their own mortality, the woman heading towards acceptance and happiness, the man fighting against his ageing body. One could say.

Just as the man and woman examine themselves with a light, a child visiting the exhibition can pull the flashlight out of the kit and do the same thing.

My daughter didn’t get into this exercise and, not surprisingly, preferred the younger and more perfect Adam and Eve.

The Martyrs series

When you read the description of these four pieces, placed on the four walls of one room like a Greek cross, they sound pretty gruesome. Each scene shows a person going through a movement through fire, air, water or earth. But my 10 year old and I were entranced by the four-sided elegiac flow of individual bodies going through what should be ordeals but which were almost a dance.

Kids will also enjoy the behind-the-scenes videos downstairs, which show some of the stunts, photography setup and studio “tricks” needed to create the flooded house or a submerged man.

Not everyone in Florence wants to see contemporary art in such an historic city. But I say, bring it on! Those of us living here are happy to show our kids more of the world and of art than golden haloes and marble saints (wonderful as they are) and exhibitions like those put on by the Strozzi and this year’s Ytalia sculpture exhibition around town (upcoming blog post) offer something different.

The show was full of beauty, wonder at the human form and imagination, homage to many artists of the past (not just Renaissance) and an age-old questioning about man’s and woman’s place in the world and the wonder of life. I was also struck by the way women were portrayed in such a positive, human way.

And after all this life and death, you can’t go wrong with a nice cold sweet gelato!

Nothing Phoney about Bologna

May 1, 2017 by EmmaP 2 Comments

On my first visit to Bologna, as a poor student visiting from Florence ca. 1993, I visited some Irish friends and we stayed up all night, walking the long, meandering streets eating and drinking. Before we knew it, morning had arrived and I left soon after, not having visited a single museum, church, shop or market. But Bologna left an impression as a lively, tasty, interesting, real city and in the last couple of years I’ve been trying to visit it some more.

Last weekend I brought the husband for the first time, the kids staying behind with friends, and we got to explore all those streets and alleys by bike (a rare treat for us). Below are some shots of places we did get to visit, a little sense of what we saw in about 24 hours! There’s an (unusually) excellent visitor website called Bologna Welcome with loads of tips and routes and this being a young and studenty city, you’ll find plenty of visual material on Instagram.

And the word Baloney? Bologna sausage in North America is pronounced baloney, a corruption of the original pronunciation. As a term for “fake” or “low quality” it came into use in New York in the 1920s, rhyming nicely with phoney.

Bologna seems to hold great esteem among Italians all over the country – which is quite an achievement – and has a few well-known nicknames.

La Dotta (the learned one) referring to its university which is the oldest in the world and still fills the city with students, making it a very lively city with a sense of modern life living with history you don’t get in many “museum piece” Italian cities.

La Grassa (the fat one) as it’s famous even in Italy for its fantastic cuisine, offering Bolognaise sauce to the world, as well as tortellini in broth. You can’t go too wrong with the restaurant offerings here.

La Rossa (the red one) as most rooftops and porticoes are a lovely red but referring also to the strongly communist direction the city has mosty followed since the war.

These days Bologna is only an astonishing 30 minutes by train from Florence. As the rail hub for central Italy, I spent many long regional trips in and out of it 20 years ago but now it’s all fast trains and underground platforms. We’d almost forgotten that its train station was the target of an horrific terrorist bombing in August 1980, probably by neo-fascists, in which 85 people were killed. Italy’s often bloody recent history is something you’re never too far from, living here.

I spotted this in the window of a student bar/squat. A mafia version of Monopoly.

Bologna’s history is as long and interesting as any Italian city and even though it seems so close to Tuscany, it is as separate from Tuscan history as you can get, as the city was aligned with the Papal states rather than any of that Medici crowd.

The most famous landmark in Bologna is the wonderful Neptune statue by Giambologna, but it’s covered up for renovations at the moment – that’s it to the left of this cafe.

The historic centre is one of the largest in Europe and feels very circular, partly as there is no obvious river running through it. There are many towers to see, some of which you can climb. These two leaning beauties are known as the Due Torri, a serious landmark if ever I saw one.

The porticoes cover about 38 km of the city streets, and I’ve heard that the locals don’t usually carry umbrellas.

Food is really the thing in Bologna.

There are any number of fantastic trattorie, restaurants, aperitivo bars. This place is a heaven for eating well. You’ll find plenty of info online about local dishes, recommendations.

We found the Mercato di Mezzo very handy – a small renovated covered market in the middle of things, and I have to admit that the pizza we had at RossoPomodoro (“Neapolitan style with the heart of Bologna”) was probably the best I’ve ever had in Italy! Just look at that beautiful oven!

I don’t usually take photos of my food, but this was exceptional! A white slow-risen pizza with little sweet yellow tomatoes (datterini gialli) and slivers of hard ricotta. Actually we just really need to get to Naples.

And we had extraordinary gelato at this little place we stumbled on, Galliera49 . We joined the queue once we noticed all the locals patiently standing around.

The main piazza is dominated by the Basilica of San Petronio – its size is a surprise when you walk in and then you learn it was meant to be as large as St Peter’s in Rome, until the building money started being diverted to building the university instead (or maybe for St Peter’s itself). The church asks visitors for €3 to pay for a paper wristband to allow you to take photos, a good idea for basic fund raising.

The chapel of frescoes by Giovanni da Modena (the €3 entrance is completely worth it for this chapel alone) contains some of the most amazing and scary images of hell: amazing what they got away with all those years ago.

My husband is a bit of an astrology nut and was entranced by the sundial running through the church – turns out it’s the longest in the world and was built in the 17th century by Cassini, famous these days for being the name of a space probe heading towards Saturn, even having a Google Doodle made in its honour. And it works! We waited until 13 minutes past 1 (we had no kids with us) and got to see the beam of sun projected through the small hole in the roof hit the meridian. Great excitement!

We also visited Santo Stefano – a charming church complex made up of several churches from different periods and which was definitely the busiest tourist attraction that day.

The Town Hall, just off the main piazza, seemed mostly busier with people grabbing free wi-fi than visiting anything interesting, but we had a poke around this charming spot and stumbled on a show of drawings by the great Italian artist, illustrator and theatre designer Luzzati.

I taken by this impressively high-profile plaque outside the town hall in memory of the many Italian women who die every year, victims of domestic violence.

Worth a visit is the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAMbo), a dynamic centre housed in an old flour factory which attracts interesting exhibitions, like last year’s David Bowie show from the V&A. Excellent cafe and bookshop too. Good for an aperitivo.

Other art spots include the Palazzo Albergati which had a wonderful Breughel show last year and has a Mirò exhibition until this September. I’ll just have to go back for that!

Street art of Florence

February 10, 2017 by EmmaP Leave a Comment

It might seem strange that in this city of Renaissance art you can become an addicted consumer of street art, but that’s what has happened to me. The streets of Florence are filled with an amazing variety of images – from mysterious tiny symbols to brash murals. I’ve been keeping track of some of the artists with my phone camera and share some of the main artists below.

Having a visual bent and training I love keeping an eye out for familiar artists on a random wall or street sign – but I also love passing on the fun of it to my children and the visitors we get to show around Florence. In fact the kids are more likely to point out some Clet-adjusted traffic signs to a confused visitor from abroad than know the name of the 17th-century church we’ve just passed. For anyone visiting this uber-centre of culture, most of it of a visual nature, street art is now an accepted part of the scene and I believe it’s great visual training for eyes that are still learning concepts of style, composition, colour and communication.

Zed1, Florence (photo from italymagazine.com)

You could atcually say there has been a Renaissance of street art in Italy and many of these Florence-based artists are making their mark internationally and being recognised in more serious form at home like at the recent exhibition showcasing 18 local street artists at the (brand-new) gallery Street Levels Gallery on Via Palazzuolo.

Is street art not just graffiti? There are several big differences between the two, you can read in more detail here. Graffiti is of course an Italian word, used for centuries to describe an image scratched onto a hard surface, like a wall (Graffiare means to scratch). In modern times it’s a form of marking or statement usually on public property.

As for street art – speaking broadly you can say that it is more public than graffiti, and it’s more about images and less about (indecipherable) text and territory-marking, it’s more tolerated and usually more public though it can be just as sharp and political. Let’s say it’s easier on the eye and (frankly) more artistic.

Street art is often associated with the huge murals present in many European cities (we used to enjoy the extraordinary ones in Oslo) though some cause more controversy than others, like the gory but artistic images that have very recently appeared in Brussels.

In Florence the streets are narrow and the history is heavy so the local artists have found interesting ways to blend their images in – on gas cover panels, wine holes (read more about them in my other blog post), underground passages or road signs.

Street art is not to everyone’s taste and because it’s on the street it gets dirty, destroyed or removed. But these artists are working in a temporary, non-secure context. Consider how much nerve it must take to pop a drawing on the wall of this Renaissance city (even if it is already dirty). The city has not always, or ever, been pristine, no doubt there’s been graffiti on these buildings for hundreds of years – indeed some think Michelangelo left some scrawls behind on the Palazzo Vecchio, read more here.

I’m fascinated by the originality and sheer daring of the placement and content of the street art here. And it’s quite an experience to encounter it in the streets of Florence where the artist often plays around or challenges the hyper-famous images contained/constrained inside the museums and souvenir shops. After admiring the amazing 600 year old frescoes in the city churches, (as well as the mind-boggling restoration techniques so well now explained and displayed), enjoy this modern fresco form as you wander the streets.

So if you’re planning a trip to Florence and want to explore its vibrant street life or you’re coming with kids then here’s a quick guide to some of the top street artists. You’ll find their work all over the centre of town and under Instagram hashtags like #streetartflorence, #murifiorentini and #firenzestreetart.

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L’arte sa nuotare / Blub

The artist Blub runs a series around town called L’arte sa nuotare (Art knows how to swim) and his is one of the more popular styles in Florence with visitors. Usually starting from a famous image from art history, ideally one from a museum around the corner, he places them into an underwater environment – to refresh them, make them speak to us in a new and less jaded way.

His facebook page

Exit/Enter

My personal favourite, Exit/Enter creates beguiling and intriguing and very simple line-drawn images with a splash of colour that make you stop in your tracks. Apparently he was frustrated by the lack of gallery opportunities for a young artist so took to a public space instead. Fully integrated into the street in which they appear, his pieces often give a sense of movement and flow to your walk through the city. Florentine disegno in modern form?

Exit/Enter Facebook page

Clet

Like many artists drawn over the years to Florence, Clet is not a local but he’s now an internationally-known name. Originally from Brittany he has been based here for many years and at his workshop in San Niccolò you can pop in to say hi and buy a few souvenir stickers of his iconic images. His roadsign interventions are a deliberate public statement about the limits of civil society, without altering the original signage and its communicative design (well maybe sometimes I get distracted when driving). The vinyl stickers he designs and sneaks onto city signs are often quickly removed but just as easily placed on again. They’re also a huge hit with visiting and resident children!

Have a look at this Guardian slideshow to see him in action.

Clet on Facebook.

And a few extras that have caught my eye but I know little about

The Le Cure passageway

A well-known dedicated space for grafitti and street artists is the underground passageway at Piazza Le Cure that crosses several junctions and the train track. Grab a gelato at Cavini on the corner and wander down into this intriguing underworld gallery, you might even hear the organ- and radio-playing local resident.