Went to see
Vatican Splendors A Journey Through Faith And Art at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh’s historic strip district. Very Impressive. Each period from the history of the Vatican was well represented with various artifacts. I could’ve done with seeing more paintings however.
My favorite pieces of course were the
baroque period paintings and sculptures. I saw a painting that was similar to some of Caravaggio’s work. A huge painting of an angel attending to St. Sylvester who the Romans ran through with arrows because he wouldn’t stop preaching. I do not have an image of that painting unfortunately. There was no information posted abut who painted it either, but the Caravaggio influence was obvious. When I see those types of pieces I’m always amazed at how thin and even the paint is applied, and also at how the weave of the canvas is so coarse compared to paintings today.
They had a few cool
Michelangelo pieces. Off to the right of a second generation cast of the Pietà (photo of the original below) there was an original, relief sculpture by Michelangelo. I spent more time looking at that little gem. Partly because there was no crowd around it and partly because it was not finished so you could see the chisel marks he himself made. Never thought I’d see anything like that outside of Europe!
Here is a link to the
Holy See. Really cool site, if you're interested.
