October 4 Venice

Mike asked me today if Venice met my expectations. I’ve wanted to come here for maybe 45 years so that’s a great question. I had to think about it though because yes it’s all I’d heard and read about but more intensely so. For example the gondolas really are everywhere. The handsome gondoliers really do have the striped shirts and hunky shoulders, and when they say sing, wow, you can hear them from far across the canals. A stereotype…yes…but true!

We saw a lot of large scale religious art (14th – 16th centuries) in museums and churches today. For contrast, we visited the Peggy Guggenheim Museum of modern art. She was an early (and very rich) collector of 20th century paintings and sculpture, and owner of a modest palazzo on the Grand Canal. She was even married to Max Ernst for 5 years. I loved seeing the work of Ernst, Picasso, Braque, Mondrian, Calder, Kandinsky, etc. Most of the paintings were monochromatic so I really liked this one by Severini that reminded me of an art store window nearby.

When I started this blog I promised myself to be short and focused on one thing a day. I break the vow already. I can’t help myself.

We stumbled onto the Teatro la Fenice that we’d read about in John Berendt’s City of Falling Angels. The entire opera house was rebuilt, mostly with foreign funding, after a 1996 fire. The pink foyer was redone exactly as it was in 1792. The hall has seating on the floor in rose colored arm chairs and five stories of boxes (painted aqua) including a “royal box” that was golden everywhere. The ornate relief designs were formed in paper mache and gilded in pure gold.