The Uffizi or the art of ukioy-e.  How can I decide?  I love them both.  They are like children, you can’t choose a favorite!

Let’s start in Italy.  How can you go wrong?!!  Well, you can’t!  Did you know that 40% of the world’s art resides in Italy?  It is the truth.  And a lot of the best is in this former office building in Florence.

Galleria degli Uffizi. I could look at this view–in person of course– for minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or even a lifetime.

Here’s a nighttime view, looking the opposite direction. Sigh.

Here is just one of the masterpieces included in the Uffizi collection.  Botticelli‘s Birth of Venus.
Time spent looking at this painting is my idea of heaven, although I have little patience with the crowds that gather in front of this beauty.

And, before I get carried away with the incredible Florentine museo, let me turn to ukiyo-e, aka Japanese wood-block prints.

Here is a masterpiece by Hokusai known as The Great Wave.  Try to imagine yourself as one of the boaters in the lower right quadrant.  Scary thought!  Is the artist making a statement about the magnificence of nature and man’s tiny role in it?  Maybe.

And then there is the great Hiroshige as seen in one of his views of the famous road between Tokyo and Kyoto. Notice how the smoke from the bonfire drifts up and out of the composition, even breaking the framing device.  Nice touch Hiroshige.  No wonder you are considered a master artist.

Based upon the realms of art, the letter U is a good, even great, letter!

Ciao, sayanara!