of potential interest

I haven't been blogging much because I've been trying to get myself kind of organized for getting ready to leave. Additionally, yesterday afternoon I finished my 11 page paper for the Michelangelo class. The following is just the introduction:

Between 1538 and about 1545, Michelangelo made three drawings for his close friend and correspondent Vittoria Colonna: Christ on the Cross, a Pietà and Christ and the Woman of Samaria, the latter of which is lost. As a result, the discussion of these drawings will focus on Christ on the Cross and the Pietà drawing, both of which are mentioned by Condivi and Vasari. The drawings represent a new concept of art that Michelangelo initiated, by considering a drawing as a finished work of art, by giving the art as a gift and as a result free of the constraints and tradition of the artist/patron relationship, and finally by creating the art as a result of intellectual discourse and interaction. The way Michelangelo chose to treat the subjects, which he had already done multiple times throughout his career, are clearly a consequence of his relationship with Colonna and their shared views of reform-minded Catholicism in the very early years of the Counter-Reformation.

The paper, at least I tried, to go beyond just a study of the Michelangelo/Colonna relationship and get into the iconography of the work. However, in only 11 pages, there wasn't enough space or time... I could see this easily getting to 20 pages to explain everything well. However, there wasn't enough time to do this exceptionally well and to do more reading and research. It's a fascinating topic, because everything is so incredibly complicated.

Mostly today I just did laundry. I'm trying to go to Calabria with a minimum of dirty laundry. Tomorrow I have exams. Basically, I have 10 questions (the total number of questions for both exams put together) to prepare, each of which are expected to be written on for at least a half hour. Of course all of the questions have within them multiple questions that are more like groupings of a theme rather than just one simple question to answer.

It's also really, really hot.