Fun With Jesus

Nave of Chiesa del Gesu

"La Deposizione" -Caravaggio

The way that my classes work in Italy is that I have each class twice a week and Italian three times a week. For the classes that I have twice a week we have one one hour period and then a two hour period. The one hour classes are generally lecture based. However, the two hour classes are where the real fun begins. During these larger blocks we generally go out and look at things pertinent to what we are studying. This means that so far this week I have been to a total of four beautiful churches. I tend to visit churches for my classes since they are some of the most characteristic places to see Renaissance and Baroque art. On Tuesday I visited Chiesa del Gesu, Sant'Andrea della Valle, and Chiesa Nuovo. Wednesday, I went to Basilica di Santa Cecilia. All of the churches I went to were Baroque in style and Santa Cecilia had a Baroque nave decoration but the majority of the church was Renaissance. The Baroque, illusionist paintings in Chiesa del Gesu were some of the most amazing things that I've seen in Rome. Pictures do not do the paintings justice, I am so lucky to be able to see the art in person! The characters in the paintings do not respect the architecture of the boundaries of their frames but instead give a three dimensional effect that is so powerful that you cannot tell the differences between the paintings and the actual sculptures that interact with them. The church of Sant'Andrea della Valle was also very breathtaking. The church is dedicated to Saint Andrew and houses many great works of art. Perhaps the most exciting piece that we saw was painted by Caravaggio. The side altar glorifying St. Andrew was also amazing. The altar was decorated with gold, black onyx, and lapis lazuli; it was beautiful. The last church we visited on Tuesday was the Chiesa Nuova, or New Church. This church is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The church is home to an icon of the Virgin that is meant to be miraculous. What I found to be miraculous was the triptych of paintings by Rubens that surrounds the icon. The painting that is at the center has a hole in the center in which one can view the icon. The painting surrounds the icon with a host of angels and the paintings on either side depict saints that are also important to the church.

Altar/ Center painting