As some of you might know I have returned from a trip to Europe with beautiful Bobby. London, Paris, Rome and of course Michelangelo's home town; Florence. It was hard to keep in mind that it was not all just a theme park like Disneyland. The Duomo for example. Look how dark and dirty on the right then how clean and bright it looks on the left. It looks new which from a theme park perspective is all wrong. Disney would build something like this then dirty it down for a feeling of authenticity yet here are the Florentines cleaning it all up. What do you think?
500 years of dirt is hard to reproduce. Yet 500 years ago, before so much carbon was in the air, it might have looked clean anyway. What is authentic and what is just dramatic stage craft. Like ageing make up on an actor or using stage smoke to give a scene in a film more atmosphere this dirt makes you realise how old this building is even though it was probably just the last 100 years of pollution that made it this way.