Forte Di Belvedere

Giusto_Utens_-_Palazzo_Pitti_and_the_Forte_Belvedere_-_WGA24195

Palazzo Pitti & Forte Belvedere, one of a series of paintings of Medici villas by the Flemish artist Giusto Utens from 1599. The fort was built nine years earlier, on the highest hill of the Boboli Gardens to protect and watch over and keep an eagle-eye on the city of Florence down below. Continue reading “Forte Di Belvedere”

Frames of reference

Another Look At Florence

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One visit to Florence was not enough, we had to come back for a second round. A third and a fourth would have been good, this place is inexhaustible, but sadly we didn’t have time so we needed to be selective. Top of the list was the Uffizi but not until we’d had an extremely indulgent breakfast at Rivoire in Piazza della Signoria, a great place to watch our fellow tourists. Continue reading “Another Look At Florence”

Frames of reference

Albatross

Albatross with plastic debris for web

Beatrice Forshall working on a picture of an albatross surrounded by plastic debris she’s collected from the beach; a salutary warning against the the proliferation of throwaway plastic in our modern-day world. It’s an image made in response to Midway: A Message From The Gyre, a film that shows the toxic consequences of too much discarded plastic in the seas. Continue reading “Albatross”

Frames of reference

Barga & Beyond

Fosso

I’d read of a huge tree, a monumental cedar of Lebanon, that grows just outside the walls of the town of Barga in northern Italy. It was born in 1814 and transplanted here in 1836 where it became adopted as a symbol of Giovine Italia (Young Italy) and Italian unification. Continue reading “Barga & Beyond”

Frames of reference

In Venice

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Palazzo Dona

In Venice I revisit views that I have drawn or painted before and feel more free to take liberties with, like Palazzo Dona in Campo S. Maria Formosa or the big palaces across from San Vio near Accademia. But there is nothing quite like a first ‘go’ at a newly discovered subject – last summer it was a view across the Grand Canal from Calle Giustinian, discovered near a sumptuous Sean Scully exhibition, and the little Oratorio in Campo Sant Angelo which I must have by-passed countless times but which I suddenly saw in a new light as I made my hot way home for lunch.

What a seductress – La Serenissima – I just can’t stay away! Continue reading “In Venice”

Frames of reference