Gilded Ceilings, Bronze Beards
Gold domes, red-walled rooms, a mosaic floor worn by a century of footsteps — and outside, a bronze beard with two gulls fighting over the crown.
After a long night outside, we went looking for a different kind of light. We found it under glass domes and gilded ceilings, falling softly on red walls and old paintings.
Every room opened onto another, each one framed by marble doorways and columns that made you lower your voice without being asked.
People moved through the galleries at their own pace. Some stood for a long time in front of a single painting; others drifted past like the figures in our slow exposures.
Underfoot, a mosaic floor told its own story, stone by stone, while a thousand pairs of shoes walked straight across it.
Outside, the day was cold and white. Red buses cut through the square, and the city suddenly felt loud again.
On the way out we looked up at a bronze statue — a man with a magnificent, very well-kept beard — just as two gulls landed on his head. Even in bronze, a good beard draws a crowd.