Slog - Comments on Gold http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold In a small dark room painted forest green tucked into the third floor of the Seattle Art Museum, you'll find Lorenzo Ghiberti's 500-year-old Gates of Paradise. The Gates are not really gates; they're three gleaming golden panels, spotlit like diamonds on dark velvet, held inside clear oxygen-free cases filled with nitrogen. The heist-movie lighting is more fun—and, literally, more illuminating—than the way the panels appeared when I caught them two months ago at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There, they were subsumed in another tableau, installed in the reconstructed patio of an early 16th-century Spanish governor's castle, slightly overcome by... Copyright 2008 Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:00:40 -0800 Wed, 30 Jan 2008 21:34:04 -0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.34 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Comment by Will in Seattle These were really cool when I saw them in Firenze (Florence). Highly recommended.

Course, seeing the doors themselves and the cupola and tower was way more fun.

]]> Will in Seattle http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c915820 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c915820 Visual Art Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:05:43 -0800 Comment by Gloria These were cool when I saw them at the Met.

I would love to see them in Florence one day.

]]> Gloria http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c915943 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c915943 Visual Art Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:23:08 -0800 Comment by kinaidos I was kind of miffed when I learned the panels I was looking at in Florence were replicas, but the gelato was real, and that's what counts. Saddly here the panels will be real, but the available gelato will be fake. I'd much rather have it the other way around.

]]> kinaidos http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c916069 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c916069 Visual Art Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:42:15 -0800 Comment by Jessica I am so excited to see them, and not just because we spent most of my art history class today discussing them in the context of Renaissance sculpture.

They look beautiful, and happily, it's more affordable to broke-ass students to see them here instead of in Florence.

]]> Jessica http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c916125 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c916125 Visual Art Wed, 30 Jan 2008 12:50:55 -0800 Comment by Will in Seattle Way more affordable to see them here.

But, surprisingly, Florence is way cheaper than either Rome or Venice.

]]> Will in Seattle http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c916262 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c916262 Visual Art Wed, 30 Jan 2008 13:17:51 -0800 Comment by Will in Seattle Limone gelato ... dang, flashback.

Sorry.

Dang that stuff's good ...

]]> Will in Seattle http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c916268 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c916268 Visual Art Wed, 30 Jan 2008 13:19:02 -0800 Comment by sharon I'm so happy to see these here in Seattle. I remember studying them in art history and being blown away by the third panel down. I look forward to seeing it up close again.

]]> sharon http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c916397 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c916397 Visual Art Wed, 30 Jan 2008 13:46:11 -0800 Comment by Brad So let's be all snobby and comment on how they are great and all, but they are far greater when you are in Florence.

But it's true. However the interior of the Baptistry shouldn't be overlooked. It is stunning with its amazing mosaic.

And of course the doors are replicas. But the Museo is on the other side of the Duomo...not far to walk to see the real things, plus it has all that cool iconography.

]]> Brad http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c916507 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c916507 Visual Art Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:14:52 -0800 Comment by Y in Brooklyn I went to this show at least 8 or 9 times when it was at the met. I'm definitely jealous that Seattle gets to have them now...

]]> Y in Brooklyn http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c916512 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c916512 Visual Art Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:15:47 -0800 Comment by Natalie As an historical note, my mum was 21 years old and in Florence with friends during that big flood. They'd been driving around Europe in a beat up old Jag for months and collapsed at a little hotel in exhaustion, and they didn't even know there WAS a flood. They kept ordering room service for days and couldn't figure out why the housekeeper was in such a bad mood when she brought them their meals. Turns out the whole first floor of the hotel was flooded.

]]> Natalie http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c916530 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c916530 Visual Art Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:21:32 -0800 Comment by Y in Brooklyn I went to this show at least 8 or 9 times when it was at the met. I'm definitely jealous that Seattle gets to have them now...

]]> Y in Brooklyn http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c916735 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c916735 Visual Art Wed, 30 Jan 2008 15:19:45 -0800 Comment by jill I salivated over the refrigerator magnets when it was. at the Met.

]]> jill http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c917382 http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/01/gold#c917382 Visual Art Wed, 30 Jan 2008 21:34:04 -0800