Duomo Project / May 7th Update

Duomo Project / work in progress ©️Matthew Holden Bates

Things have been busy here in Firenze, even though I have been painting a bit less than usual, I have been hard at work in the studio this week. I am in the phase of the project where concrete change is hard to see. There have been a lot of days where I was just working on a small detail of the painting, making sure the proportions were working. There is a lot of repetition in the design of the facade of the Duomo. Repetition means that each object has to be the same size, shape and color, more or less.

Our eyes are good at seeing minute differences in size and shape. That means that I have to be extra careful to get it right. Then, once everything is in position, I can start to render the object so that it looks real. Sometimes rendering takes a long time, many layers of paint have to be applied. The layers are thin, so it is hard to notice in the photo of the canvas here any difference at all. The rendering comes into its own later, when the canvas is all filled in and I get near the end of the project.

In these days there are art historians and workmen who are controlling the Duomo up close and personal. I found this photo in La Repubblica, a major Italian newspaper, can you believe it, the photo is of a man looking exactly at what I was painting yesterday! What are the chances?

Here is the written part of the article first in Italian:

Sospesi a 90 metri d'altezza, quasi a sfiorare il cielo. Mentre da lassù Firenze, con le sue strade e le sue piazze, sembra piccola piccola. Così la vedono i sei operatori dell'Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore che stanno eseguendo il monitoraggio delle superfici esterne dei monumenti del Duomo di Firenze. I lavori andranno avanti fino alla fine del mese. Nelle operazioni viene utilizzata anche un'autogru con un braccio di 104 metri. L'esterno della Cupola del Brunelleschi, non raggiungibile con mezzi meccanici, viene appunto monitorata dalla squadra di operatori che si calano con funi, come veri e propri alpinisti, dalla base della lanterna della Cupola. Il monitoraggio è un'attività che l'Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore fa regolarmente due volte all'anno, all'inizio e alla fine dell'inverno, e che permette di controllare i circa quarantamila metri quadrati di superfici in marmo, per verificarne lo stato di conservazione e programmare gli interventi di restauro. A eseguire le verifiche un gruppo di restauratori e operai, eredi diretti degli scalpellini che realizzavano le decorazioni scultoree e architettoniche della cattedrale e del campanile e che oggi si dedicano al mantenimento e alla conservazione di questo patrimonio.

English translation:

Suspended 90 meters high, almost touching the sky. While from up there Florence, with its streets and squares, seems small. This is seen by the six operators of the Opera of Santa Maria del Fiore who are monitoring the external surfaces of the monuments of the Duomo of Florence. Work will continue until the end of the month. A crane with a 104-meter boom is also used in operations. The exterior of Brunelleschi's Dome, unreachable by mechanical means, is precisely monitored by the team of operators who lower themselves with ropes, like real mountaineers, from the base of the dome of the Dome. Monitoring is an activity that the Opera of Santa Maria del Fiore does regularly twice a year, at the beginning and at the end of winter, and which allows to check the approximately forty thousand square meters of marble surfaces, to verify the state of preservation and planning restoration interventions. To carry out the checks a group of restorers and workers, direct heirs of the stonemasons who carried out the sculptural and architectural decorations of the cathedral and the bell tower and who today are dedicated to maintaining and preserving this heritage.

I have been thinking lately that the men who actually made the Duomo must have had some kind of unknown technology because look how hard it is for us to get up there, and we have all of modern technology to fall back on. Just a thought, more thoughts to come!

This post is part of an ongoing series about the making of this painting. If you would like to see the other posts in the series here are the links:

Day One
Day Two
Phase 1 Complete
First Week of Painting
Further Work San Matteo
San Matteo Detail Work
Beginning Marble Inlay
Continuing Work on San Matteo Niche

If you would like to follow the process of the making of my Duomo Painting, go ahead and follow me on Steemit @matteopaints . Upvotes are always a blessing and resteems get the word out and about! If you have any questions, or should just like to say hi, please comment below and I promise that I will get right back to you ASAP!

Until next time, Arrivederci 👋😀 Matteo