The Dim Ages

Several times Sheena has started blog entries on her week from Rome, but it has been difficult to find the right words. And pictures do not do any justice to the beauty and history that one sees with every step in a city unlike any other.

Spending 5 days surrounded by the the best that human kind, over the last two millenia, has been able to produce is a bit daunting and humbling. And energizing. And frightening. Sure, sure... much of the beauty was paid for by the blood of slave labour, or underpaid apprentices, or tithe money bullied out of the little guy by egomaniacal noblemen and religious leaders.. details... DETAILS.

But the most stunning architecture, sculpture, painting innovations of the Renaissance era revealed the highest level of ability that man had to offer in creating objects of beauty intended not only to worship and flatter but to demonstrate new findings in technique and physics and intellectual curiosity. The Sistine Chapel is perhaps more a testament to wisdom and philosophy and logic as it is about supernatural creature veneration. A reaction against the Dark Ages.

Does it ever strike you that perhaps we're living in an age of dimmed expectations? That we've lost the thirst for better, more elegant, more rational? That we've settled for ugly? For whining and name-calling as the preferred method of public discourse? That maybe we could use some egomaniacs wanting a legacy for the centuries? That more artists whinging about the fringes making do with their own feces for media should sell out for an opportunity to express their true vision in materials for the ages?

Sheena returns to Canada later today with a head full of unrealistic expectations. Don't let me down.