Art Critics at Uffizi
After our visit to Uffizi Gallery in Florence, I gave the girls a creative writing assignment: pretend you are an art critic for a newspaper and you are critiquing one of the pieces of art you saw at the gallery. They each picked their favorite piece and stepped into character!
BIRTH OF VENUS
I am Reese Noonan with the “Renaissance Reporter” and I am here to critique “The Birth of Venus.” We shall begin.
This painting was painted by Botticelli in the 1480s. In the middle of the painting is Venus. On the left are the god and goddess of wind. And on the right is the goddess of spring. Now let me tell you more.
Venus was born on the water. The gods of wind heard, so they pushed her to shore where the goddess of spring would greet her and give her a robe — because she was born in the water and had nothing to wear.
Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed.
BATTLE OF SAN ROMANO
This is Harper Noonan, reporting from the Uffizi Gallery. I am here today to talk about “The Battle of San Romano” by Paolo Uccello.
In this painting, he was playing around with the idea of perspective. It is a beautiful painting, with a fight clearly displayed in the foreground. The background consists of some fields and a few more soldiers.
The problem is that his perspective is TOTALLY OFF.
In the background, there are some bunnies hopping around, and they are supposed to look normal, but if they were in the foreground, they would be 50 feet tall! Same with the knights in the background. They are giants!
In the bottom right corner, there is a fallen soldier, who, if he was standing, would only be 4 feet tall. Near the knight, is a horse kicking up his hind legs, which look more like ham hocks than a horse's calves.
I appreciate that he was trying something new, but the concept of perspective and depth perception is not that hard to grasp. Besides those few mishaps, the painting is beautiful! The brush strokes are magnificent along with the colors.
DONI TONDO
This is Sadie Noonan, reporting from the Uffizi Gallery for The Florence Times. Today I will be focusing on the painting by Michelangelo titled, “Doni Tondo”, also known as “The Holy Family.”
This painting was commissioned by Agnolo Doni to commemorate his marriage to Maddalena Strozzi, the daughter of a powerful Tuscan family. As I learned from my visit to the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo can be a very spiteful artist. He definitely let out some of his anger in this painting of “The Holy Family” by adding nude figures in the background. This painting was almost not approved by Agnolo Doni because he did not like that Michaelangelo included those background figures. I feel like this piece of art because it is very amusing and has a lot to tell. I actually like that he included nude figures in the background, because as a viewer it is a very interesting story and history behind the piece of art to enjoy!
This painting depicts The Virgin Mary (center) receiving baby Jesus from Saint Joseph. In the background, there is a brick wall that many believe represents original sin. John the Baptist is in the middle of the painting, behind the brick wall with many other nude figures in various poses, none of which are looking at Mary.
This painting is the only painting done by Michelangelo that is mobile. All of his other pieces of art are sculptures that weigh tons, or paintings that are on immovable surfaces. This painting is really a special one because it is unusual for him. This circular painting is in a wood frame, engraved with the Strozzi family crest, lion faces, stars, suns, and moons. The painting was painted on wood.
This piece of art is incredible. It definitely deserves to be in the Uffizi Gallery, the largest collection of Renaissance art in the world. It is truly a masterpiece.