This world class city got me excited about art more than 25 years ago.

I was in Florence Italy in 2005 participating in the Florence Bienelle. As the show preceded my preoccupation with the locale of the exhibition consumed me with anticipation of a visit to the famous Galleria digli Uffizi.This gallery /museum is world renowned for its collections of Italian renaissance artists like daVinci and Michel Angelo. Any artist that has flogged their way through Art History survey courses would appreciate the concept of seeing an original daVinci as apposed to a slide reproduction. Well! I finally made it and my intention was to see daVinci’s  “ Adoration of the Magi”.  Entering the Uffizi was monumental with spires and columns lining the court through which all tourists enter. I was just a speck, another body upon millions that proceeded me and I was more enthusiastic then any of them.As I walked through this gallery ( it seems hardly right to call it a gallery, more a museum) I realized it was a 14 the century or older building that housed 20-30 galleries of art. Overwhelmed to say the least! I saw paintings and sculpture by Giotto, Botticelli, Montegna and Bellini and da Vinci, Raphael, Titian and Michelangelo.After about 2 hours I was exhausted and I could no longer take any more visual stimulation. I said to my wife Cathy I need to see one more painting than we will go.We headed for the room that housed da Vinci’s greatest work and there was a line up that curled around the top floor of the gallery about 200 ft long.“I can’t do this” “I won’t stand in line” as I attempted to convince myself it wasn’t important to see what I had only seen in a book.Disappointed but determined to leave we started towards the exit only to take one last detour through a little gallery at the end of the corridor.Oh my God there it was  8 –12 ft high and 12 ft wide was da Vinci’s “Adoration of the Magi” with not a person around it.O.K. let me tell you what is so special about this painting. da Vinci never finished it. There were several works that were incomplete but this one had a balance of drawn figures and horses (cartoons) with finished painted figures and horses in the same context. It was as if daVinci purposely left one fifth of this painting incomplete.Any practitioner of the fine art of painting would realize that daVinci was teaching the viewer about anatomy and the technique of building a work of art with an incredible dynamic presence. This painting while documenting a historical event provided the viewer with an examination of daVinci’s own ability as a master draftsman. It became clear to me I was supposed to see this painting. I sat in front of it undisturbed for a total of 45 minutes visually groping the surface of the canvas. Like a Michelangelo sculpture daVinci’s fingerprints were indelible. “Adoration of the Magi” provides evidence of drawn and re-drawn images, some kept and some discarded. The under painting is actually the map by which only a master could and would change the composition during the painting process. Reserving the right to design and re-design elements like a horses head or a figure of a man rejoicing, da Vinci some how translates these expressive drawn figures into something called a masterpiece.