Time Traveling, Art Historian Book Chapters Essay

Time Traveling, Art Historian Book Chapters - Essay Example As I step into the machine, I think of the periods of time and the great works that will be there when I arrive. I took the greatest care in detail, the clothing prepared, my language skills perfectly honed to a time and place, as well as history can inform me, although I am sure things will not be fully as I expect them to be once I arrive. I sit into the contraption, its cold steel lying under its camouflage, an exterior that seems to be a wooden platform with a structure around it, resembling something of a small shack to be set down in out of the way alleys, calculated to exist, or within outlying avenues that support the nature of such a building. The shack would fool anyone who looked at it, its nature defined by its purpose. I step into the machine, the slight hum filling my ears and buzzing my senses as it begins to move through time. I have set the dials under the panel so that I will appear where I desire, and then stand in the center, closing my eyes because the feeling of moving through time disturbs my sight, a detail that most others do not feel when they are given the privilege of using the machine. I cannot wait to see this place, the time and moment that I have decided to enter Rome, her majesty impressive in the present, which will most likely impress me more in its past. My eyes shut, I let the hum move over me until it stills, and I assume that I have entered the right space and time, the slight strange clunk as I appear affirming the very human need for noise, something to announce to the rider that he or she has arrived. The sound, very much like the clicks on a computer as one touches the button, the noise created just to appease the user. Chapter One The Sistine Chapel I cautiously open the door, seeing that I have arrived in the alley as I expected, stepping out of the machine, I see that it looks very naturally, like a makeshift shack that was erected to temporarily house someone of no means from bits and scraps. I can see that it is n ot, but most people who would not know that it was there, would not think anything, or at least much, about its presence. As I take a breath, it feels like for a moment it is knocked from me as quickly as I breath in, the scent of the city foreign, both lacking something and feeling something added, my hand automatically coming up to cover my mouth as I try to adjust to the odor. The lack of automobiles assaults my senses as I draw in a breath, feeling it catch from its foreign taste as it hits the back of my throat. It takes a few minutes for me to be able to breath more easily, which then leads me to feel the discomfort of my clothing, heavy and cumbersome now that I am out of the air conditioned lab and in the air of the year 1511. As I step into the streets of Rome, I realize that more than just time changes from period to period. The air, the feel of the sun as it beats down to a still protected earth, the ozone layer still intact and providing filtration, all make a difference in the taste of life during that time period. Italy has that natural glow of amber, as if the olives have broken open and become airborne, and this is heavier and more beautiful than I have ever experienced in modern day Rome. I ache to see the countryside and experience its beauty, pure and whole before technology stripped it of its beauty, but I have a task that I must accomplish. I must see the Sistine Chapel before it was the Sistine Chapel and still the reconstructed Capella Magna, letting my eyes rest upon the newly painted