Blog 11

As a third year English major, I am always fascinated when I read literary pieces by an author and am totally taken in by them. I am of the mind that when you allot time or energy for something as fundamental as reading, it should be enjoyed and leave you with either a sense of inspiration or creativity to master your own literary voice. The worst thing in the world is to be exasperated by something you devoted your time to reading because it is just utterly awful. 

In any event, after having to brave through many nights of inhumane and intolerable reading assignments, all unsolicited if I may add, I have learned to fully appreciate a phenomenal read or at least phenomenal to my standards. Michael Kimmelman’s, Just a Quick Bite With Leonardo was just what I needed. It was a fifteen minute break I needed from homework, in light of the fact that reading one of his articles was homework. That is what reading should be, refreshing. 

Let’s just take away the fact that I am completely enamored with Italy and focus on the read. I talk about fifteen minutes because Kimmelman spoke of one of his recent trips to Santa Maria delle Grazie Church in Milan, Italy. Amongst many of his excursions if I imagine correctly, he visits this church to again gaze upon Leonardo da Vinci’s, Last Supper painting for the equally allotted fifteen minutes that each group of tourists or admirers have to view the artwork. Besides speaking of the experience, he questions whether the fifteen minutes is enough to fully grasp the fullness of the painting. While I am no art historian, I am however an English major and can speak from that perspective. 

As I read the article, I jumped ahead a little to see where it was going. Once I understood what he was posing to me, I started again from the beginning and deliberately took fifteen minutes to complete the reading. Within fifteen minutes, not only did I travel to the church where he was, I also stood in the crowd and took a glimpse of da Vinci’s masterpiece. In fifteen minutes, I went to Italy, viewed artwork and came back home to write about it. This is what writing and literature is supposed to do for the readers. I had a very clear perspective on his views as well as his experience and it took all of fifteen minutes, the same amount of time the viewers had to look upon the painting, form an opinion about it and move on. 

This was an intentional read, again because I have a fascination about Italy though I have never been there. I didn’t imagine that choosing this article would turn out as interesting as I found it to be. I have never heard of or read anything by Kimmelman before this and I can honestly say that I am now a fan. That has nothing to do with his writing of Italy but everything to do with my relating and being able to comprehend his thoughts without needing a dictionary and a professor standing by.  He painted a picture that I understood. With all of the unbearable reading that I must complete, this was noteworthy because of its relativity. So to answer his question which basically asked was fifteen minutes enough time to fully appreciate and form an opinion of the painting, I will respond and say that fifteen minutes in time is all we need. His article proved it.