Lucca was our nearest and most favourite city this summer. We visited many other places but often ended up here and we got to know it better each time. This was my first photo in Lucca, in Piazza Anfiteatro – a ramshackle circuit of medieval buildings, it incorporates elements of the Roman amphitheatre that once stood here – and there’s always another photographer in the middle. Continue reading “Another Look At Lucca”
Category: History
A Short Diversion
Driving to work the other day I was diverted from my normal course and led to discover the Isokon building. I’d never seen it before but instantly it seemed familiar and true, as if it were an archetype, elegant and beautiful, the epitome of 1930s utopian modernism. Continue reading “A Short Diversion”
A Walk Along The Walls
An aerial view of Lucca and its magnificent walls planted with trees, a green belt around the city, a circular park punctuated by six gates and eleven bastions. In the foreground is Baluardo San Paolino. Continue reading “A Walk Along The Walls”
Caverne Du Pont D’Arc
Christopher Corr was in France recently and sent us some pictures from the new Chauvet Cave Museum in the Ardèche. This one is Chauvet Museum Wall Paintings. Continue reading “Caverne Du Pont D’Arc”
Safety Net
In 2011 a great opportunity had come my way; a retrospective for Pharmacopoeia with a linked solo exhibition in a lakeside Danish gallery. However, at the time I was in the hold of a depression and struggling to do the mundane let alone the creative. Continue reading “Safety Net”
Bergamo Alta
Piazza Vecchia, the Venetian styled centrepiece of Bergamo’s upper town, the medieval Città Alta, high on the hill overlooking the modern city of Bergamo on the plain below. Judging by the cars I’d guess this postcard dates from the 1960s, but there were no cars parked here when we visited last summer. The square was pedestrianised for the flocks of summer tourists. Continue reading “Bergamo Alta”
A River Walk
The Cutty Sark at Greenwich was a good place to start. It was the weekend of the Greenwich Tall Ships Festival, the biggest gathering of tall ships in London for 25 years. They had all set sail from Falmouth to race to the Isle of Wight before celebrating in Greenwich. Continue reading “A River Walk”
Wells & Mells
Cathedral Green at Wells, the eternal stone partnered with an inflated upstart. We arrived just in time for the Somerset Schools Folk Dance Festival, a ceilidh for more than 2,000 primary school children, all stepping and skipping and turning circles on the green. Continue reading “Wells & Mells”
Aftermath
This exhibition at the Art Workers’ Guild in Bloomsbury features work produced during both the Great War and in the uncertain years which followed. Continue reading “Aftermath”
Seascapes & Seescapes
Two exhibitions, one in Greenwich, another in Margate, both featuring paintings by J.M.W. Turner, both spectacular. The image above is a watercolour from the Tate Collection, Harbour Scene at Sunrise, possibly Margate, so let’s begin in Margate. Continue reading “Seascapes & Seescapes”