Art and Culture or Rome

Art is EVERYWHERE in Rome, and when I mean everywhere, I mean everywhere. You can walk into a public bathroom and find an oilpainting on the wall. Or for those who like graffti, I think about every ten steps, there is some type of tag on a wall, fountain, door, and even some fences. This is the one place in the world that must have over 1,000 works of art in one city, and they all date older than 1400 c.e.





My first art piece this week is a change from the normal art pieces because, this was the first church we've seen in Rome. The church name is Basilica San Giovanni in Laterano. This Basilica was created by Constantine in the IV century. He created this because of this new religion he found, which he saw in a dream. In this dream a sword upside was in the sky and a voice told him that, if he follows this idea he would prosper. Constantine followed this idea to war. In this war he was obviously not win. However, he told his troops to paint these upside down swords on their armor, in hopes it would help. He soon won this battle, and became a follower of this new religion called Christianity.





After this basilica was created Borromini restored the inside of the church in 1650. He was asked by Innocenzo X before he died. The front facade we see today, was created by Alessandro Galilei in 1735. Which represents the past facades the Basilica had before. The shape of the Basilica has never changed.

My second piece of art is the statue of Jesus. I'm first going to start with color, I edit this photo a little so we could see the colors a little better. The firsts color that really sticks out is the red in the background. Red is a color of power and control, this shows (if someone didn't know who Jesus was) that this man was really looked up to. I also see the red as being the blood he sacrificed for the people.

The line I see here is from his finger tip, to finger tip. It is a half circle shape, showing openness and acceptance. Also, his right hand is open which shows he is open and accepting as well. Also if you can see in the picture his space is quite big, and his gown is flowing. This shows he is a major part of the religion and he has a lot of power. However, if you can see he is stepping on a serpent that is in his space. It once again shows he has power and control.

"I've never believed in God, but I believe in Picasso." - Euan Uglow