Foreign Eyes, Local Lights

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…

frescoes for the patron, piano nobile

the cortile, looking toward the exhibition

Maddine Insalaco and Joe Vinson listening to introductory remarks

Emanuele Rossini delivers his remarks

the venue; to the right, Alison Kurke with a catalogue

Modern Artists in Civita Castellana

I'm ceding the floor in this post to my friends Maddine Insalaco and Joe Vinson, who have organized, along with Alison Kurke and Emanuele Rossini, a show in Civita Castellana this fall of modern plein air artists who have worked in this part of northern Lazio so beloved of Corot and others. Please do try to come and see what should be a wonderful exhibit.

“Through Foreign Eyes: Civita Castellana by Artists Past and Present” (Con gli occhi degli artisti stranieri)

Exhibition to be held from 19 -26 September 2012

American artist painting at Civita Castellana 2007

Curated by Maddine Insalaco, Joe Vinson, Emanuele Rossini, Alison Kurke

Before the introduction of the automobile and construction of modern highways, most overland travelers to and from Rome along the Via Flaminia passed through Civita Castellana. In the 18^th and 19^th centuries the town became a favorite destination for international artists seeking places of exceptional natural beauty with local hospitality, and it was immortalized in the numerous works they produced. Today it is rare that anyone, including Italians, has even heard of Civita Castellana except in the context of sanitary wares. Yet, the interest by foreign artists has continued through the centuries to the present day. Originally motivated by a curiosity about the open air painting tradition in Civita Castellana, contemporary painters have acquired a genuine appreciation of the territory that will be formally shared with the public in this proposed exhibition. Between reproductions of historic paintings now located in museums throughout the world and original paintings by professional artists, the exhibition will comprise between sixty and one hundred images of Civita Castellana.

Revisiting Civita Castellana

Una Pausa

Castellaccio, from the Ponte Clementino

As the weather gets lets conducive (along with the academic calendar) I’ve retreated indoors and onto a series of studio painting and design projects, but in the meantime it might be nice to revisit warmer weather and a different environment: Civita Castellana (northern Lazio) in May of this past year. I’ve been told there will be a show of foreign artists’ plein air paintings around Civita in the Fall of 2012, as a way to promote the region which was such an important destination for plein air painters of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, especially Corot. Posted here are some subjects of theirs that I painted, and which for all practical purposes remain unchanged. One will be recognizable as the painting on my pochade box at the head of the blog….

Regarding materials, the two tufa subjects are on prepared archival canvas boards, both primed with a burnt siena/umber ground; the one behind the Forte Sangallo is on stretched canvas, primed with a higher key ochre ground.

Vignale, near Corot's old hotel

behind the Forte Sangallo (morning)