Beauty Comes in Many Forms

Over the past two days, my wife and I have experienced so much in Italy!  Florence is a beautiful city, and over the centuries, that beauty has been expressed in numerous ways.  Sometimes, however, the beauty is more difficult to see because our modern eyes no longer see beauty in the same way that our ancestors did.

Wednesday morning, we went to the Central Market.  It is next to Santa Maria Novella, a huge church and the final resting place for several generations of the Familia Medici - the ruling family at the height of Florentine political and economic power in the early Renaissance period.  The Central Market is a large building with many different food vendors.  And what they have for sale is nothing less than amazing.  Take a look at some of these pictures.  Isn't the produce beautiful?  Look at all the cheeses, and meats, breads and more!

They all looked beautiful and tasty.  My eyes feasted while in the market.  And my mouth feasted later on what we took back to our apartment for dinner.  We've settled into a pattern of eating one big meal per day, and lighter meals the rest of the time.  But when I say one big meal, I mean one BIG meal!  So we'll see how well I manage to stay at my weight goals for the wedding.  Hopefully with only one big meal combined with lots of walking, I won't get too far off track.

  Some of the market's beauty, however, was a little hard for me to appreciate.  Take a look at what some consider to be appetizing food choices below ...

 Above: whole pig's head.  Left: Squid.  Below: Swordfish.

Actually, I've had swordfish before, and it is quite tasty. However, I never had to look at it's head and sword before eating...

So beauty can be defined in many ways.  We found that to be true not just in Central Market, but also in the Uffizi Gallery.  The Uffizi is a six-hundred year old palace built by the Medici to display and protect their vast collection of art, weapons, and other examples of their fortune.  Today, it's a museum containing some of the most famous Renaissance paintings in the world. 

More than fifty rooms display hundreds (maybe even thousands) of pieces dating from the ancient Etruscans to the 18th century.  Obviously, the latter examples are post-Medici acquisitions, but they do serve a valuable purpose: the continued development of fine art over more than two millenia.  I'd love to show some pictures from this experience, but we weren't allowed to bring cameras.  However, the intellectually curious can Google image search Giotto, Lorenzetti, Monaco, Veneziano, and the "big guys" like Lippi, Botticelli, DaVinci, Michaelangelo to see what's in the Uffizi.

I spent three hours in the Uffizi, and probably could have stayed for at least another hour or more.  We had to hurry through some of the later rooms because my in-laws were "done" and ready to go.  My wife was more tolerant/enthusiastic and stayed with me all the way.  I didn't necessarily understand/like everything that I saw, but I was amazed at the sheer creativity of the human spirit inspired by the Holy Spirit. 

I do indeed believe many of these works were divinely inspired - even the works that were not specifically religious, although the vast majority of them were.  In those days, artists were both enticed and expected to draw their inspiration from the Christian faith.  Their works were considered to be both worship in themselves (as they were created) and inspiration for worship once they were completed.  However, it wasn't the artwork being worshiped, but the Creator/Savior/King that they pointed towards.

I could imagine what it may have been like to enter the sanctuaries where many of these artworks were originally housed as altar pieces and the awe of God that they would have evoked.  My own worship was evoked by them even outside the context of a church.  I am saddened that in many ways we've lost this sense of offering the best of our creative arts in the religious context.  Now, the state of the art in creativity is often expressed in ways that dishonor God, creation, and humanity.  It's used to express rampant selfishness, cruelty, and the worst of our character rather than the best of God's character.  But it doesn't have have to stay that way.  We can work to change it by offering our best to God in every aspect of our lives.

I recognize that the artists behind many of these masterpieces may have led troubled, even decidedly  non-Christian examples of life outside their works.  But for me, that only proved that God does indeed use all things to point back towards the divine.  All of us are imperfect beings, striving towards perfection.  So I am not disturbed by the examples of imperfection so much as I am inspired by our striving towards perfection.  That beauty comes in many forms, and it's beauty is determined more by the eye of the divine beholder than by my own eyes.  Therefore, my prayer is that I can learn to truly see beauty through God's eyes.