The pictures in this post are all unretouched and I've only adjusted the brightness and background blur in some photos. Taken with my iPhone 6, it was a perfect day to test out the iPhone 6 camera. Like an impromptu iPhone 6 camera review lol. A lot of the photos were taken under low light to protect the real artefacts from being exposed to elements that enhance degradation.
If you know me personally, you'd know my obsession with Da Vinci stemmed from me, having read The DaVinci's code. I know you're all like ya haven't we all seen the movie, you're not some hipster who's obsessed with yet another "underrated" novelty. I'll have you know that I picked up The Da Vinci's code at 9, I'm 18 now. Hipster name calling aside, I was obviously too young to understand the beauty in the complexity of Da Vinci's work.
Now that I'm older, every time I read The Da Vinci's code(over 6 times now?), I become even more intrigued. I've read almost all of Dan Brown's books excluding The Digital Fortress(nothing's the same without Robert Langdon, now is it) and I'm currently starting on Inferno(YAS HE'S BACK).
This guy is a bloody genius? How could he have looked at the world in a way that's so profound?
I swear to god the next place on my bucket list of places to go is definitely the Louvre. That's the beauty of knowledge. It helps you appreciate things that people overlook everyday. Is there another granny out there that appreciates Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Archimedes like me? Please contact me, I need to do some serious fangirling. So I arranged and booked tickets for a Da Vinci trail to celebrate my birthday and our 2 years 11 months. The Earlier Mona Lisa at The Art's House and Da Vinci: Shaping the Future at the Arts Science Museum. Tickets was courtesy of the boy who told me to spend my birthday however I wished.
I mean, it's romantic and all for the guy to plan dates but this was my birthday. I wasn't going to pretend to enjoy something I couldn't care less for, doing things I didn't like. I want to spend the celebration of my birth(lol) in a way that was truly going to make me happy. Oh and by the way, the exhibitions have been and will be here from 16 Dec 14 to 11 Feb 2015 and 15 Nov 14 to May 15 respectively.
The Earlier Mona Lisa was undoubtedly fascinating. Leonardo Da Vinci was known for leaving his works half finished(will get to that later). It is believed that the Earlier Mona Lisa, was the Lisa Del Giocondo painting that was entirely hand painted by Leonardo alone and was left untouched and unrestored and well, unfinished by Leonardo. The Mona Lisa hanging on the wall of the Louvre was believed to have been painted by, not just Leonardo, but by other artists who helped him with the finishing touches most notably the landscape and the shadows of the pillars that are in the background of the painting.
So it is believed that the painting in this exhibition was done by Leonardo alone, which explains the unfinished and not-well-drawn background.
It was an audio tour which was super cool. I must be so primal lol. I am a tech geek to a certain extent but give me a book or an actual person guided tour any day. If you were wondering, in the picture before this, the picture of the lady on the left was a drawing done by a student of Leonardo's when he saw first hand, Leonardo painting the actual Lisa. It was his student's adaptation of the Lisa which was/is so stunning.
This was the reason for his unfinished work. Look! See! Even the most celebrated and talented person of all time finds fault with his own work. Sadly, you are your own worst critic. For Da Vinci it was sad because his works were actually amazing. Don't know if humble or Asian. Must be the former.
LEFTIES OF THE WORLD UNITE. I knew Da Vinci was a lefty I knew it, it was the left hander radar in my left handed brain. Lefties just know another lefty when they see one. It's a thing that only 10% of the world population understands. Lefties, no matter how smart or dumb, always have a crazy good grasp, out of this world, talent. If not one, many. My one is of course writing. It's just my forte and will aways be.
Da Vinci was gifted in everything. This tour teaches you about his obsession and his attention to detail. Making sure no brushstrokes were ever seen on his work by using a technique known as Sfumato, to his free hand drawing of embroidery.
Don't illuminati me please(trust me, Addly pulled this one on me). I took this picture to show you Da Vinci's obsession with geometry and the Golden Ratio and Golden Spiral. The Mona Lisa painting was based on Da Vinci's Golden Ratio which talks about perfect symmetry.
You don't have to be beautiful to have the Golden Ratio. Just perfectly symmetrical, in Da Vinci's books, you're perfect already. Many of his works are based upon the Golden Ratio such as the Vitruvian Man and St John the Baptist. Even the Last Supper. So please, no illuminati here.
See what I meant by the unfinished background? That is so of the characteristic of Leonardo. I told Addly, "Maybe this is way better than seeing the Louvre Mona Lisa. This picture is so perfect and seeing it so up close and personal...".
Oh yes, the Da Vinci girl in me was getting emotional. The painting is so well executed and so beautiful. Every bit of detail left me gobsmacked. Of course I had to conclude that this was indeed done by Leonardo. The extensive research(wikipedia and other sources will tell you it's not well researched upon) done by the most brilliant scientists and experts on this painting just proves without a doubt.
Like the XX and GC saga you know. Cold hard facts, stats and numbers always win. Before this, I never saw the Mona Lisa as something amazing or stunning. But after seeing the real beauty of Lisa Del Giocondo. It speaks for itself really. Afterall, the age when Leonardo painted her was when she was in her early 20s? Derive your own conclusions baby.
We then had lunch at someplace that firstly, satisfied my cravings and was nearby. We had to jet off to the Artscience Museum because the last viewing was at 6pm! This was the Da Vinci: Shaping the Future exhibition.
A wild Addly appears at his favourite wall of all, Maths *rolls eyes emoji* He is an engineer afterall.
Now, the story about my shoes though. This exhibition was a little bit longer and there was a lot more walking and I was already getting tired(i've been sleeping at 3 everyday lol). So I was like fuckit, there's no way I paid 20 bucks to learn and be in Da Vinci's presence, in pain. No way in hell was I gonna be whining and missing exhibits and bits of info because I wanted to leave quickly.
Fuck dem shoes. I walked around the whole exhibition, shoeless. I wasn't kidding when I said, open quote, I wasn't going to pretend to enjoy something I couldn't care less for, doing things I didn't like.
Then the shoes were off lol. I'm such a difficult person to be around. I told Addly, "If you're embarrassed then don't walk with me I don't care HAHA. Told you i'm difficult. Nevertheless he stood by me *cheeky grin*. The only reason he was uncomfortable with me with my shoes of was because i'm notorious for walking really fast, in between small spaces and wandering off. Like when we see an exhibit together and he turns to talk to me, i'm already gone. On to another exhibit that's caught my attention lol
Maybe he thought, the heels would make her walk slower and she won't go into cracks and places where I cannot fit because my body is the size of a bulldozer. #trueaddlythoughts #imanotorioussmallperson #perksofbeingsmallandshort
lots of neck pain shots
His shirt was so apt and so fitting into the theme of geometry and Da Vinci. This was also so funny because Addly looked like a kindergarten bully who steals all the toys for himself. But that girl was the mean one and took apart his creation without permission to take some pieces for herself LOL.
babe i'm trying my hardest to create a 4D shape. ok. #trustmeimanengineer #andalsoaprogrammer #andialsolift
OMG BABE THIS IS FREAKING SECONDARY SCHOOL O LEVEL SHIT. REALLY. MOE HAD NOTHING ON DA VINCI. ded
babe look wavy things on the floor!
and flying things!
"Da Vinci believed not only that the inner organs of a human were closely interconnected, but also that they had a direct cause and effect relationship to the external features of the body." Tell em, D man.
geog slutpt1
geog slutpt2
Finally what I came here for!!! The one, the only, Codex Atlanticus!!! The Codex is like Da Vinci's sketchbook. All his ideas and thoughts were drawn out in this book and it is a big ass book. Well-protected of course, in this leather book cover and encased in something like a transparent chest? It was the most magnificent thing i've ever seen in my life. The true work of a true genius right before my very eyes. Da Vinci, why oh why have you made me such an emotional wreck. Must be the hormones. If yknow what time of the month it is.
Forgot to say that all the exhibitions do allow photography but do not allow flash photography. I cannot emphasise how important this is. I cannot deal with that scumbag who "accidentally" fires his/her flash in a no flash photography zone because oh i'm sorry, I don't appreciate your existence if you think your picture is more important than the future generation's ability to learn from the precious artefacts because your flash contributed to its further degradation. Only some parts of the Da Vinci Shaping the Future Exhibition didn't allow photography at all to protect the integrity of the paintings and also just in case any turd wants to copy and reproduce or recreate some of the highly dangerous mechanised weapons drawn out by Da Vinci. Lol, the threat is real.
Please don't be that turd or that scumbag in the museum. Everyone around you will just be wishing you'd evaporate from the face of this Earth.
This ball thingamajig is a platonic solid. At the end of the Da Vinci Shaping the Future exhibition, you're allowed to create one of the Da-Vinci-shaped objects(what even). This shit was so hard to make just because the small circular shaped fasteners kept popping out. We both made our own but only one came out alive. Initially mine and then I was so frustrated I gave it to Addly to finish it. And finished it did he. So this remains one of the most sentimental and the best presents I'd ever gotten because it is filled with imperfections(tears and such) but is still so perfect. Idk maybe i'm impartial because my boyfriend did it LOL DUH.
I didn't even allow for it to be squished and I hand carried it all the way home like this. Babe, if you didn't already know. I appreciate you as much as you appreciate me, quirks and all. Best birthday I could have ever asked for. Not because we did the things I loved, but because you accepted and understood and took interest in the things that I loved. To me, sacrifice and selflessness is the best show of love. If you don't have much, sacrifice is the best thing you can ever do for your other half. Because one day when shit hits the fan and you have nothing left, the sacrifices made by your partner for you will be the one that counts and matters the most.
If you don't already know, Addly is schooling, works weekends, gyms 3 days a week. He doesn't like to tell me but he works just to support my spending and our outings. I know, i'm such a proud and lucky gf.
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