Italy's Beauty There is so much beauty for which art lovers and people like you and me turn to Italy for the models, that we sometimes loose sight of the universality of Italian artistic production. There is scarcely a department of art work in which Italy did not excel the world in history.

Italian Art

Except perhaps for France, no country in the world is so lusciously laden with fine art as Italy. Part of the hedonistic pleasure of touring Italy is that art abounds, inside and out. Everywhere you look, the countryside and coastal areas are picturesque, and when you venture indoors, buildings are resplendent with works of art that inspire and draw upon your emotions. In Milan, one of the fashion capitals of the world, the modern blends with the antiquated, and much of today’s art comes from the designs of houses such as Versace, Armani and Prada.

Italian art has a long, varied and politically- and religiously-driven undercurrent. Even the buildings in Rome, Venice and Florence are works of art. In Florence, the city that marks the movement out of the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, architectural art flanks the Arno River and through the streets that fan out from it. Stunning examples of art made into structures include the Palazzo Vecchio, the Campanile, San Lorenzo, the Uffizi Galleries and the Piazza della Repubblica. Brunelleschi’s Dome, which tops the cathedral, is Renaissance design at its best and the city was accordingly built with this esthetic in mind.

The dominant forms of art found in Italy are sculpture and paintings, although all levels of design, including industrial and automotive thrive here. What more beautiful and treasured cars exist than Ferrari and Lamborghini! They are truly works of art in metal. In Florence, marble sculptures from the early Renaissance period (around 1400) are mostly located inside the many churches and cathedrals. Donatello, among the most famous sculptors of the time, has works all around Florence, some of which are life-sized (or larger) figures and took as much as 2 years to complete. Their realism is so fine, it seems impossible that these “people” could be carved from stone.

Another Florentine artist, Masaccio, focused on religious frescoes that depicted scenes from the Bible, rich in detail and life’s lessons, too. Perhaps the most famous Italian artists from that era are Sandro Boticelli, who painted the famous “The Birth of Venus”, Leonardo da Vinci, who painted, drew, designed, and built such wonders as “Mona Lisa” and “The Last Supper”, and Michelangelo, sculptor and painter extraoridinare, who gave us “Pieta” and “David” in white marble, and painted his incredible fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (according to reports, with much complaining and many melt-downs!).

In Rome it is the influence of the Vatican that defines much of the art. Religious icons and statues grace walls and street intersections, ristorantes and pensiones. Rome’s peak period was (in general) before the Renaissance “happened” mostly in Florence, so its contributions are different to the world of Italian art. Much of the sculpture in Rome demonstrates classic styling borrowed from the Greeks. Rome, in its heyday, like most other Italian “cities” was a city state; Italy did not become a unified country until 1861. It was dominant, off and on, but mostly on, during its early years and reveled in its seat of power in the Roman Empire. As a result, it was a cultural center where people, and artists, from as far away as China, traveled and set up their easels. Therefore, Rome’s art is perhaps more eclectic in nature, and does not, by and large, possess the high realism that was more typical of the early and high Renaissance period in Florence. Most art enthusiasts will recommend Florence over Rome for the traveler who wishes to bask in the glory of Italian art.