I could put museum tour guides out of business

You already know I’m a Classical Civilizations major, but you sure don’t know how obsessed with it I can be, and neither did the other WTR mates until today.

After helping out at Vern Buchanan’s campaign office one of the staffers took us to the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art.  The only reason I know the whole name is because the wristband is still on my wrist.  Anyway the house was amazing.  It was right on the water and had this huge marble patio and these really awesome windows with different colored glass panes, so pretty.  A girl can dream…

The highlight of the museum trip for me was the art.  I take serious pride in my knowledge about classical mythology, art, and history.  I never really get to show it off either but today was my lucky day.  The Ringling museum had some great paintings of classical myths.  I had an amazing classical mythology class last semester when I was abroad and now I love playing a little nerdy game when I see art with classical characters in it.  I try to see if I can guess who they are and what myth it comes from.  It was great, there was a painting of the judgment of Paris by Lodovico David that I particularly enjoyed.

Outside there were copies of really famous statues, and then Christie made a huge mistake.  She asked me what one of them was, it was the David.  Okay so it’s not classical but I liked art history and I’ve been to Italy twice, I occasionally expand my nerdiness to other time periods and themes. So of course I gave a little description about what it was and what it represents. 

And then we saw the Laocoon Group.  It’s one of my favorite sculptures.  I spent in total probably over an hour standing in front of it at the Vatican Museums in Rome.  Of course I proceeded to tell Christie the story behind the statue.  There was also a statue of Europa being carried off by the bull, aka Zeus, and a copy of the Apollo Belvedere and even a copy of my favorite statue, the Augustus Prima Porta.  That’s partially because I’m obsessed with Augustus. What a genius.

All in all I basked in my nerd glory and was so excited that Christie asked me about the statues.  Telling people classical myths and talking about classical culture is one of my favorite things to do. I’m so fascinated by it that I want everyone to know this stuff too.  Seriously if you want some mythology I can help.

I originally envisioned this post to be short but surprise, surprise my love for classics has forced me to ramble.

I shall leave you all with a little Latin in the spirit of the Classical Age…

Valete!!!