| wayfinder45 |
Mar 18th, 2011 06:08 PM |
There was a very funny thread on the Paris forum about taking young kids to art museums in Europe given all the willies and whatnots on display. So I had talked to my 8-year-old daughter about this knowing that we would be going to the Vatican Museum. I had even heard that there was an entire room devoted to willies and I was mildly curious to see how that collection might be displayed. I mentioned this room to my teenage girls as well, to see if they were interested in hunting it down (they thought the idea repulsive – good, just checking!). But I had spent some time talking to DD3 about nudity in art, so that she could get accustomed to the idea and treat it more naturally. I wanted to minimize the arm pulling, finger pointing, and giggling that might ensue.
What I was TOTALLY unprepared to deal with was the violence depicted in much of the art we saw. From epic battle scenes to crucifixions and beheadings, if Renaissance art had a parental rating, it would probably be PG-13 – and R if you factored in the nudity. The worst: the massive “Slaughter of the Innocents” in the Hall of Tapestry. I tried to scoot DD3 by without her seeing it, but no, she stops dead in her tracks and looks straight at it. “What’s that about?” she asks me. Well, there’s really no talking around sharp daggers pressing into the throats of babies.
Now DD3 is not overly sensitive so it wasn’t that I thought she’d be traumatized (although the Slaughter of the Innocents is pretty unsettling). But I wasn’t equipped to help her process what she was seeing. Between the depictions of John the Baptist and Judith and Holofernes, we must have seen at least a dozen decapitated heads. It might have helped to have a little background handy on why Judith beheaded Holofernes, so at least I could have rattled off extraneous details until she got bored. So hone up on your Bible stories!
Traveling with both teens and a young child was an interesting juxtaposition: DH and I could barely throw a fact or two the teens’ way before they knew ALL they needed to know, thank you very much. The little one was a wall of questions, none of which I seemed to have good answers to.
The directors of the Vatican Museum have obviously learned a thing or two from Walt Disney. Queue design for Space Mountain has nothing on those inviting little arrows pointing you to the Sistine Chapel! Every time you think you’ve GOT to be almost there, you turn a corner to face another hall, another staircase, another massive collection. It was all amazing though. From the mummy in the Egyptian room, to the enormous Porphyry bowl in the Round Hall, to Raphael’s rooms and the Hall of Maps, there are some truly astonishing things to see. I could have done without the “modern” section, however – that last gasp before you actually reach the Chapel.
The museum was not at all crowded, and we were able to move about easily. Turns out, that was because everyone was in the Sistine Chapel! It was wall-to-wall packed and that made it difficult to really look at it properly. Disappointing, but we had had enough in any case. Time for a cappuccino and some pizza at the museum café. We were able to snag some outside tables and enjoy a glimpse of the gardens. I was pleased that we’d made it through without anyone having a meltdown and everyone seemed to get something out of it -- if not a little too much!
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