Val d’Orcia – Frames of Reference

What Is Paintable?

Through The Trees

My primary interest in painting for the last 40 years has been how to depict and respond to a range of landscapes. Before I can begin to think about painting a place, there has to be a specific reason to do so, and the place must have a particular resonance with me. My recent work can be divided up into three groups: paintings of Tuscany and Umbria, paintings of Andalucía and paintings of the Thames Estuary around the RSPB reserve at Rainham Marsh, not too far from my home. Continue reading “What Is Paintable?”

Bagno Vignoni

After visiting San Quirico d’Orcia and Montalcino we headed south looking for Bagno Vignoni, a spa since Roman times, but we got distracted along the way by the Abbazia di Sant’Antimo, a beautiful Benedictine monastery set in a lovely landscape of wooded hills and olive groves. Continue reading “Bagno Vignoni”

Quercione Delle Checche

Where is this tree? I’d just bought a photo of it direct from the artist himself. Why hadn’t I asked him? I was kicking myself. It’s a magnificent photograph of a majestic tree, I felt obliged to pay it a visit. All I had to go on was the title – Quercione delle Checche, Val d’Orcia – so I searched online. There were a few references but without Italian or GPS they were not so easy to decipher. I reckoned it must be somewhere south of Pienza in the Orcia valley beside the road to Radicofani. So off we went. Continue reading “Quercione Delle Checche”