"He did that with a Chisel?"

During our Saturday seminar which was Roman Art History I was very interested in the famous sculptures of Rome. Every time I think of sculptures I think of ancient Egypt and how the Pharaohs would use slaves to carve out their statues of themselves. The roman Emperors did the same thing, they wanted their sculptures to look as real as possible. They believed that having a good sculpture of someone made their ghost happy so they wouldn’t haunt them. The thing that was most interesting was how the statue of Marcus Aurelius on the horse survived antiquity (before the Middle Ages). If you notice how Marcus Aurelius is bigger than the horse, the sculptor did that on purpose. He did it to balance the body on the horse because the horse only had 3 legs that were straight and the 4^th was up in the air. The pope thought it was Emperor Constantine but discovered it was Marcus Aurelius.  I would love to just walk around Rome and see the sculptures that are so old and so valuable just to witness that amazing piece of history with my own eyes would be breathtaking.  The other thing that interested me was that some sculptures would have big eyes which are common during Christianity in Rome. The thing that was most crazy is the relief sculpture which is used to record military history. The one we learned about is a cylinder that is 700 feet tall! Im only 5’5, so that pillar has about 695 feet on me which is ridiculously crazy! How did they have ladders that tall to mold the pillar or to record the military history with a chisel? These things are mind boggling.  The pillar is placed In Trajan’s Forum and it’s where Pope Gregory had his funeral monument. My favorite sculpture is Michelangelo’s Pieta! Not only did he carve this with only one slab of marble but to capture such fine details like the ripples in the cloth and the holes in Jesus’ hands and feet where the nails were is just pure genius. The Pieta is the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus this statue represents my faith and how Jesus died for our sins. From my last blog you guys must think I have an obsession with Michelangelo well I kind of do. He just has such talent and mystery in his artwork. I would love to witness all his sculptures and many more magnificent ones in Rome! 

  

 

-Sincerely,

          Myriah Catalano