the uffizi

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.

-- Carl Jung (1875 - 1961)

• I like to eavesdrop on tour groups speaking in English or German. It's a nice summary. The tour guides are always young, very earnest, well-dressed because they usually don't need the jobs (at least the ones that work in museums). In the back of their minds they are wondering if the people they guide are absorbing everything they say. It's always amusing to see them try to seize control of their tourists when the tourists start wandering away.
  
• The disarming thing about the Uffizi in Florence is that for hundreds of years famous artists from far and wide travelled long distances (relatively long in those days) to see the paintings I went to see. Even Dürer was a tourist there. To slog through the mountaings and villages, and to not have the benefit of the internet or color photographer or offset printing: it must have been an emotional event to finally gaze at all the paintings!
  
• I like to sit down and stare at a painting for 20 minutes. A lot of people stand. When I am standing I start noticing all of the other people entering the gallery, especially what colors they are wearing, and what they are talking about. Nobody was particularly clever nor particularly stupid, but in a place as crowded as the uffizi they were a big pashima shawl blob, and it was hard to get a view of many art pieces.