VOICEOVER: Understanding the lives of those that
have come before us provides a greater
insight for the life ahead of us. Marist,
in partnership with the Istituto Lorenzo
de Medici, allows students to experience
the lives of the past masters, to walk
the streets of this historically
significant city, and to follow the
passion for artistic inquiry and
exploration.
Florence is made by a stratification of many periods, many works.
Many of my classes use the city.
They take us out instead of staying in
class and studying about that piece of
work, we go see it and the teacher talks
about it and explains it. That's one of
the advantages being here is that you
get to see what you're studying.
The thing about living in Florence, and
especially the studying here, is there's
an emphasis on classical, you know
approaches, and the history of art but
you kind of need to know the rules
before you know when to break them.
If you take a look to Fiesole you will see
that there is a beautiful Roman theatre.
So, you can study in Florence ancient art,
classic art, but then taking a look to
the panorama, you realize that Florence
is a medieval city, so you can study the
middle age. But then, it turns into a
renaissance city, and not only here in
Florence, we have the opportunity to
study the art of 16th century, 17th
century, 18th century up to the
contemporary art. So, yes, I think it is the
best place to study art history because
you can compare different languages,
different artists, different periods.
That's what we do here, we see masters and we travel
all over Europe. We see all of everything.
We see the history and we see the new
things, and we make our own stuff.
Italy and Europe is so small compared to the
States, that you're studying something and
that is in Rome, you can go.
In two hours you're there.
Florence is the best
place, you know, to move all around Europe.
In two hours, you can be in Paris, you can
be in Berlin, you can be in London, you
can be in Madrid, you can be in Istanbul.
My students travel during the weekend,
they visit museums that we study in class, and then
they come back and share ideas and share their experience with the other students
and that is very interesting.
I've taken contemporary art classes, I've taken 19th
century, there's avante garde, there's a lot
to offer here and that's what I like the most about it.
And I tell to my students
that you cannot understand the
contemporary art without knowing
medieval art, or Renaissance art, or
ancient Greek art. Everything is a
dialogue and everything is a progressive
build up of languages, expressions. So, you
have to be aware of all the time periods,
not only one. I personally think that a
student who graduates in art history can
do whatever he or she wants. You can be a curator, you can be an art
historian, you can be an art dealer, you
can be a journalist, you can be a writer,
you can do every creative work you want
to do. Because studying art history opens
a window on the reality we have around
us in the present and in the past.
It's incredible when there's that special
lighting, or its evening, it's incredible.
And I feel very lucky to be able to live in such an incredible City
