On January sixth, the Italian Honor Society took a trip to the MET for the second year in a row, and everyone had an amazing time.
Mr. Loria wanted to expose his students to the “rich culture” in our area, especially after speaking about the Renaissance in class and discussing major artistic themes of the period, he believes “just being exposed to culture and beautiful places is an intricate part of Italian society.”
The group started off their day at one of Mr. Loria’s favorite coffee shops in the city prior to visiting to the museum. “It was great. I had a cheese danish and we watched the sun rise while we drove over the bridge,” opined history teacher Mr. O’Toole who accompanied Mr. Loria on the trip (while Mr. DelPiano was cruelly tossed aside like a cheese danish wrapper).
Upon arrival at the MET the students were divided in half and each group was taken on a guided tour which highlighted the museum’s sculpture collection.
Junior, Henry Arturi recalled his “jaw-dropping” encounter with the sculpture: Ugolino and His Sons by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, which tells a story from Dante’s Inferno about a father imprisoned with his children and driven to the brink of cannibalism.
The statue highlights the psychological torment he faces while contemplating eating his own starving sons in order to survive. “The raw emotions captured in his face seemed impossible to have been sculpted by hand,” admired Arturi.
After viewing the sculptures, the students attended a workshop where they crafted their own mixed-media sculptures, enjoyed lunch, and strolled through the museum some more.
All in all, they had a phenomenal experience and Mr. Loria can’t wait to bring his students there again (and Mr. DelPiano, for the first time).