Beauty of Art: Florence

The paintings of women have changed enormously from women who show their bare skin as a symbolic of being graceful to being heavily dressed up today in dresses, gowns accompanied by extravagant jewelleries. Nudity no longer symbolizes high status in a society, unlike during the Renaissance era.

*a street painting in Florence*

The Birth of Venus, painted by Botticelli during the Renaissance years depicted Venus being born and coming from the sea by a seashell. This painting is one of the famous pieces being kept in Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Being one of the oldest art galleries in the world, Ufifizi houses quite a number of the famous pieces of Leonardo da Vinci, Van Rijn and Michaelangelo.

*the statue of Leanardo da Vinci outside the gallery*

I spent an hour queing to buy the tickets and since reduction is only available for art students and I am not able to convince them that I studied art in my university, I have to fork out a heavy 15 euros.

But trust me, the gallery is worth every single cent of my money. I started of by looking at the portraits of the Medicci family along the corridor but since I only know Lorenzo, the man responsible for the Golden Age of Florence, I scanned through the other portraits in less than 15 minutes and went into the main gallery.

AMAZING is inadequate to describe the greatness of the art pieces in the gallery. Besides The Birth of Venus, I got to see Leonardo's The Annunciation and The Adoration of Magi. And to those who do not have a single idea of these masterpieces, fear not. There's English explanation of each art piece which helps visitors to understand better.

Photo taking is not allowed in the gallery and its fair enough since I paid 15 euros to get into the gallery just to catch a glimpse of the pictures and how unfair it is if you can see tha paintings here on my blog for free.. =)

*the famous sculpture of the death od Medusa outside the gallery*

Thus, do make a trip to Uffizi if you are planning to go to Florence anytime in the future.

Michaelangelo's David

Biggest joke of my trip to Florence:

J: Dad, we are going to Florence to see David!! *shouting happily with arms waving in the air*
Dad: Oh, ok.. Is David your friend? What is he doing in Florence?

And yes! David is everyone's friend in Florence because I would say that's the reason why thousands of tourists flocked to Florence every year, just to catch a glimpse of David, the naked boy, the most graceful man in history!

And to all of you who are still wondering who David is, here lies the history of Michaelangelo and David. David is a biblical figure who fought Goliath and the batlle is a representative of the battle between the Church against Satan. Michaelangelo started his project on sculpting David in year 1501 and it took him 3 years to complete the 5.17 metres scuplture.


David is said to be the most graceful man in history because of his posture. He looks tense and ready to fight, clearly shown from his bulging veins on his right hand. Besides, when viewed on the right side, David has a boyish expression but when one walk to the other side, you can see the furious David, full of courage, ready to knock down Goliath.

*David's bulging vein*

Like any other heroes, David, eventhough he is only a sculpture, had experienced lots of trials and tribulations. He was struck down by lightning and damaged in a riot in 1527 but he manged to survive until now, for more than 500 years. Bravo!


David is now housed in the Accademia in Florence where one needs to pay 6.50 euros for the entrance fee and the most painful part, you might have to queue at least an hour because there are just too many David's admirers waiting to see him..

And yes, The real David lives in Accademia but there are many copies of David in Florence, like this one! David from Piazzala della Signoria and the best part, its free and no queing! But do get into the Accademia because you definitely will not regret it. David is just A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!