More Than Human, Angel Divine :: Personal Narrative Art Traveling Essays

More Than Human, Angel Divine "The purpose of art is not a rarified, intellectual distillate--it is life, intensified, brilliant life." --Alain Arias-Misson "I am a poor man and of little worth, who is laboring in that art that God has given me in order to extend my life as long as possible." --Michelangelo Buonarroti I have been very fortunate in the past few years in that I have been able to travel abroad. I have been intrigued by Mona Lisa's smile in Paris, witnessed the most artistic doodles imaginable in the Book of Kells in Dublin, and paid homage to the great souls entombed in Westminster Abbey in London. For me, some form of art seems to be packed in to every nook and cranny of European cities. But the greatest art that I have been fortunate enough to witness firsthand has been in Vatican City. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel encompassed all that I could imagine art to be; breathtaking, imaginative, stirring, poignant, and heartbreaking. In essence, everything life itself can be. I had been in Italy for almost two weeks by the time I was able to visit Saint Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel. I had spent a week in Tuscany, visiting places like Florence and Sienna, before heading to Rome. I managed to see some of the most beautiful art in the world without ever stepping into a museum. Instead, I headed into churches and piazzas and set eyes on masterpieces by the famous Italian artists whose names would be resurrected hundreds of years later as cartoon ninja fighting turtles: Donatello, Leonardo, Raphael, and my favorite, Michelangelo. I saw Michelangelo's David in Florence, a mass of marble beauty, ready to strike down the giant Goliath and a sign of hope and determination for the people of the city.