The exhibit
of foreign plein air painters opened at the Forte di Sangallo in
Civita Castellana last evening. The organizers—Maddine Insalaco, Joe Vinson, Emanuele Rossini, Alison Kurke—did a great
job of gathering the artists and their work, and shepherding the exhibit
through the regional bureaucracy to the impressive venue in the spectacular fortezza,
which houses the local museum of Faliscan culture, in particular terracotta
work (some of it on display in the exhibit space). A welcome catalogue includes
Maddine’s fine introductory essay, which highlights the precarious nature of
the local landscape, so beloved of painters for centuries and so vulnerable to
short-sighted economic blight. She reiterated those thoughts in brief in her
brief speech that helped open the exhibit, and I would distill two essential
ideas from the exhibit that have wider implications:
1. that artists are often the most alert, and active, advocates of
beautiful environments, and could be more widely engaged to defend threatened landscapes
2. that the plein air movement, a branch of the wider Anglophone
world’s renaissance of realist and figurative art, is producing exceptional
work that stands up to comparisons with its predecessors
The show is up until 11 November.
Some photos from the evening follow…
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| frescoes for the patron, piano nobile |
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| the cortile, looking toward the exhibition |
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| Maddine Insalaco and Joe Vinson listening to introductory remarks |
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| Emanuele Rossini delivers his remarks |
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| the venue; to the right, Alison Kurke with a catalogue |
