WEEK 12 BLOG
Easter Monday is a major European holiday and our first week back in Venice after the excitement of our Spring Tour was tempered by having the first day free!
I got up early and helped Susan Guthrie shepherd her group across the Lagoon to the airport. Susan has been an extremely committed Venetophile for a long time and her enthusiasm is absolutely infectious.
I waved as the taxi moved them away from the fondamente behind Santa Maria Formosa, and then set off for my end of the island and coffee and brioche at MY bar. I admit to not doing much for the rest of the day.
On Tuesday we met at the front door of the San Basilio apartment of Caitlin, Erika, and Kyle, and because their apartment is above a bar (THEIR bar), we stopped and ‘topped up’ with coffee and brioche. A short walk along the fondamente leaves you looking across a small bridge at a small church with a very plain façade. It is San Sebastiano, and behind this plain front is a world of wonder. San Sebastiano was the church of Paolo Caliari who was known as Veronese, and over a period of years he undertook a task that would decorate almost all of its interior surfaces. He painted the ceiling of the main chapel, all of the frescoes of its upper walls, the organ shutters, the Chancel paintings, the high altar painting, and designed its architectural elements, and the ceiling in the sacristy.
The church is undergoing a major restoration and not all of these elements are able to be seen at present, but the completed sacristy and organ hint at just how magnificent this gem of a church is going to be once it is complete. It is the perfect, if not obligatory place to begin a discussion of Veronese, and I hinted at other work by him that we would stand in front of before the week was over.
On Tuesday afternoon Karen Leigh began the first of her watercolor workshops, and the group met in the apartment of Theresa, Danny, and Pixie to go through a basic orientation before venturing out into the ‘plein aire’. I spent the afternoon with the Matteo, the Director of the Istituto across in Murano looking at a new school of Glass Making, exploring future possibilities for our students.
Wednesday morning found us gathering outside of the entrance to one of the world’s great Museums: The Accademia. It too is undergoing a major refurbishment, and is in the ‘ugly caterpillar’ stage of becoming a beautiful butterfly. Much of its collection is not on display, many rooms are closed, and to top that off, a major exhibition of the works of Giorgione is being held in Castel Franco, his home town about 50 miles from here and all but one of the Giorgione’s are on loan.
It left me attempting to describe and explain the very famous work of his called ‘The Tempest’, and I found myself doing something that I can’t quite believe. We stood in front of a giant poster for the exhibition in Castel Franco which featured this wonderful little work and I told its story! My fervent hope is that someday they will stand in front of the real thing. After my ‘stunning presentation’ we quickly ducked inside before a crowd formed and settled down to enjoy the ‘real’ art inside.
It’s really quite seductive to be the person showing student’s work of that caliber, and I don’t think I will ever tire of watching people interact with marvelous works for the first time. Paolo Veronese was waiting for us on a scale that cannot possibly be predicted. The grand scale of his “Feast in the house of Levi” has to be seen to be appreciated.
We spent a wonderful morning in this even more wonderful collection.
That afternoon Karen met the group at the Arsenale ‘vap’ stop and we trooped down Garibaldi to San Pietro (of course stopping at Giorgio’s for gelato….this week… mascarpone with chocolate cookies!) It was a beautiful, even warm, afternoon and in the shade of Mauro Codussi’s campanile the group made their first attempts at plein aire. It was a great time, and even those who were experiencing their first class, produced works that we all enjoyed at a critique that Karen conducted on the grass by the side of the canal.
On Thursday morning we moved early to a small scuola not far from Karen’s apartment. It is the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni and it houses a small group of paintings by Vittore Carpaccio. Apparently we were not early enough, and we became ensnared in a huge group of French high school students, which added a little comic relief to our visit.
On Friday we left Fondamente nove at 9.15am and journeyed across the Lagoon to Burano the tiny island renowned for its lace making and brightly colored houses. The group painted all day with Karen, and I made a ‘great escape’ with Jonathan Fetter-Worm who was visiting Karen with his father. Close to Burano is the island of San Francesco del Deserto. It is inhabited by a small group of friars who live in the ancient monastery that is said to have been started by Saint Francis himself as he returned from his visit to the Holy land in 1220. There is no public transport to this secluded place and Jonathon and I negotiated with a local boat man to carry us across. It was a brief visit conducted entirely in Italian, but was the culmination of a dream that I have had for years, and we returned with big smiles. The group on Burano had once again exceeded expectations and an enthusiastic group of watercolorists talked about their day on the way home.
Saturday was an easy day for me and I did a little house work and then caught up with the group who were painting in my end of the island. I invited them up to my apartment for a ‘spritz’ at the end of their day and we sat around the apartment sipping this delightful Venetian drink and critiquing the day’s work.
Next week will be a repeat of this, and we will continue with both the Art History and the Watercolor.
Our time here is getting shorter, but the sunsets are getting longer
Ciao, ciao
John
John Rawlings, Director FVCC Semester in Venice Program
Bob and Joann Slead’s blog
What a whirlwind 3 weeks this has been. After arriving at Venice airport and being met by one of Bob’s IPA contacts, we were led past the long line of people waiting to get passports checked, our IPA took our passports and handed them to the official and we were off to get our luggage. He was working so he had to be off to something, but he soon returned to make sure we were all OK. He apologized that he could not spend time with us but he had been sent to special duty in Hungary, However, his supervisor has made plans to meet with us with a special visit and in his words, special VIP surprise next week.
Met John and the rest of the group and off we were with a water taxi ride to our lodgings. Our apartment is in the San Polo, San Toma area. On the fourth floor, there is an elevator, small but adequate. We were shown a few things, and then led down many flights of stairs to a very dark room which was where we were to go to turn back on the main power if we used too many electric things!! Needless to say we are being careful, because even though we are on the fourth floor, there are about 8 flights of stairs, they seemed to never end. We unpacked a few things, freshened up met with Jessica and Alyssa, who are staying in our area and shown the important things. A grocery store, a bakery (Bob glowed with seeing all the pastries to be had) and most important where to catch the water bus, our transportation in Venice. Then off we were to meet with John and the rest of the group to start our tour of churches. Every day we visited several churches and John explained the history of the artist and the meanings of the paintings. The goose bumps started when I stood in front of the first paintings and have not stopped ever since. It is truly amazing to stand in front of a painting done in the 15th century in the church where they were painted!! How awesome is that!!!
Sat. we were off to Florence and the Tuscany area on a big comfortable tour bus with a great driver.
Our first stop was in Urbino up the hill to the walled city. Interesting I have some great sketches and Bob has many photographs. I won’t try to describe all the rooms we stayed in on our journey through Tuscany, but to say they were Italian, small, old, interesting and each with their own personality. On to Assisi, what a wonderful setting everywhere one looked there was a scene to paint. Found an interesting wood carving shop, took photos for our wood carver friend in Mt. The pieces are really amazing. Also saw some very intricate marble table tops and some very unusual and interesting paintings which were painted on wood and had the look of marble. The group watched Karen do a watercolor demo. Which we were all waiting to see happen. Amazing to see the colors and forms take shape.
Of course the highlight for me was the visit to the Basilica de S. Francesco, where the tomb of St. Francis is located. The Basilica was overwhelming. In all the churches the gold on ceilings and paintings is truly amazing. It makes one stop and think, where did all this wealth come from?
Paintings depict the myths and history of the centuries.
On to Florence, with a stop at a ceramic factory, which also had wines, chocolates, olive oil, soaps etc? I really had to keep a firm mind that we did not have room in our luggage to keep from buying everything I saw!! Then a surprise suggested stop at a restaurant for the most delightful lunch and a relaxing stop before we were on the way to Florence.
Just a quick note on Florence, it was three days need another blog for this, we, (use old folks) climbed to top of tower, apron. 450 steps, great view but it wore us out for the rest of the day,
but we were not finished, more later.
One more exciting event, Sunday, Easter, we went to High Mass, at St Marks in Venice, presided by a Cardinal, Joann even had communion. How spectacular.
This is out of order, but the most interesting stop in the Venice area. Burano, this is a very colorful fishing town. Every house is a different, brilliant color, reds, blues, greens etc, etc, (you will see photos) each family has a color, an only their color, no one else can use it.
More on this later,
Bob & Joann
Jessica’s blog
Oh my goodness, this week has been busy, busy, busy! Once we got back from our spring break in Tuscany there was a lot of unpacking a cleaning to be done, and on top of that we were all very excited to be seeing our friends back here in Venezia! I can’t imagine what it is going to be like to leave them for one final time at the end of this month. We have created friendships with these people that I am sure are going to last for years; they are all just genuinely good people at heart.
We also had to start back into the daily grind with all new classes. The schedule is very rigorous with art history class and watercolor packed all into a few weeks. Although now that we have been here for quite some time and have been analyzing art and architecture, the Art history part has become more of an adventure to uncover all of this places little mysteries within the artwork. Also on a positive note, water color is fast becoming my second favorite medium to use! I am actually very excited on the days that we have watercolor because it is exactly what I want to be doing anyways! I love trudging through the streets to find a good spot to set up and paint. Even though plein air is challenging, it is also a lot of fun and very relaxing. We went to Burano on Friday and painted the many brightly colored buildings and canals on the island, and when everyone said it was time to go I realized I had spent the ENTIRE day painting and didn’t even notice! How wonderful to just lose yourself in such a beautiful place.
Also a highlight for me on Burano was being able to revisit my favorite fresh fried fish restaurant! Since the very first time we visited the island, no surprise, I have been dreaming about the next time I would get the chance to taste its salty goodness
Caitlin’s blog
As this trip draws to a close these last few weeks have gone by in no time at all. I’m looking back at this week and trying to figure out what I did exactly. This week we started our Art History course and the Watercolor course. We’ve been to a few different churches and we finally made it to the Accademia. The Accademia was under construction unfortunately but there were still so many simply beautiful pieces there. The place was filled with the whole family of Bellini and many other priceless pieces by Veronese, Titian, Veronese and many others. Along with getting to learn about all the artists and pieces, we got to start our Watercolor class.
I have been waiting for this class to start for some time now. I have never painted plein-air before, but I absolutely love the medium of Watercolor. This past week has held many hours of painting outside in places such as Burano, S. Elena and S. Pietro. I personally enjoyed painting in Burano the most…I love color in paintings and well, there’s a TON of color in Burano! I have learned so much already in this class and I’m excited for the week to come.
I can’t help but start to get sad as I realize that this trip really is coming to an end. I’m working on my sketch book/journal for the Watercolor class and I’m going through all my old ticket stubs and receipts to put in my journal and old memories flash through my head. What an amazing trip. Next weekend some of us are journeying to Rome for a few days as a last fling, but then when we return we shall pack up and get ready to go home. I do not want to leave quite yet, but at the same time I feel like I have grown as a person here in these past few months and I am very ready to go home and START life. I’m more excited about getting going than I ever have been…the world seems just a bunch of opportunities now, not a scary thing.
Alyssa’s blog
Our trip was of course planned with lots of learning and some art history, but was definitely a full on vacation! Getting back to Venice and having watercolor and art history classes here at home has been like vacation also. It’s been so wonderful here! The weather has been perfect for the start of our “Plein Aire” classes. We have been painting all over Venice, and we spend after class hours painting also, either catching up on an unfinished sketch or going to another destination with a great view or interesting setting. Some of the best things to paint are little niches in the buildings with either statues or Madonna and Child shrines, or simply a doorway that has chipped paint and broken brick surrounding the frame. For watercolor especially, these things are really fun to paint. You can use your imagination to exaggerate a color, contrast, emotion, texture… In the watercolor world, the idea or emotion is embraced, not necessarily every detail must be present, not every shape within proportion. And for the nit-picky people in the world (like myself), using creative liberties like this is a stretch of the comfort zone! I am loving it. I am just letting go and chasing the page with color and different techniques.
The first place we painted was in the grassy area in front of San Pietro. This place is one we have been to before, where the tempo is very slow and the tourists are few and far between. I chose a rusticated corner of a building, adorned with two shuttered windows and a small statue on the edge of the corner. I was drawn to the different layers of decay on the face of the building. At one time, the face was a pale rouge-y pink. Where that had fallen away, the next layer is the eggshell-white stucco layer. “Eggshell” is quite the appropriate word because the layers fall away by cracking and chipping like the shell of an egg. The patterns of the decay are always different. Beneath these two layers are the raw bricks, exposed and weathered. Some are “Burnt Siena” in color and others are “New Gambouge,” or a diluted blend of the two to make a warm pink. Pair this face with two fading green shutters and tree which adds to the composition and a small statue to add to mystery and voila! A magnificent first piece.
Part of our assignment in the watercolor class is to fill our 16 page (that’s 32 pages front and back) leather bound journal by the time class is finished. We also must choose three themes to be present throughout the process. This could be wine bottle labels (have plenty of those!), doors knockers (…we won’t go there), lions, etc. What a big project! Especially for such a perfectionist as myself. I am very proud of myself though, because I went and I painted a huge depiction of the Frari Church on the second page. Didn’t even hold back! There are pinks and purples and oranges, nothing that you’d find on the face of a church, but I was following my intuition! It was a wonderful time. While Jess and I were sitting in the campo painting away, lots of people would look over our shoulder and say, “Bravissima!” Even kids! It was the cutest thing. We thought about putting a hat out for some spare change. Some of the other students in the group are really using their creativity and expanding one painting over TWO pages! Ha-ha. What a really great idea… Painting is Burano was absolutely wonderful. It’s a watercolorist’s heaven. All the buildings are so vibrant with pinks, blues, purples, yellows, oranges… some even have matching boats! The second half of the day was free time to paint on our own, and I accomplished a very detailed sketch which I am very excited about. It’s a very large piece covering a whole sheet of the paper we have, about 1 ¼ foot by 1 foot. I have a two toned teal house, between the edge of a yellow house and a pink house which is next to a dark turquoise house. Each house has laundry hung across the front and interesting characteristics about shapes of the buildings. Cannot wait to get started with this one!
As far as life out of class, we have just been enjoying what is here. Today I took a long “Italian passeggiata,” by this I mean a very, very slow stroll, which is so different than my usual pace. I was in no hurry and went to the most wonderful hidden places. Then Jess and I cooked a delicious risotto and the evening finished with a salute of piano music with a man singing an opera, drifting through our open window from the San Giovanni Evangelista Music Scuola from across our small campo. A perfect ending to this wonderful week.
Love,
Alyssa
Erika’s Blog:
Buona Pasqua! It was very different for someone who has come from a non Catholic background to attend a Catholic church for Easter and to be apart from my family over the holiday, but I did enjoy it immensely. We stood in line outside of San Marco for over an hour, all in our Easter best, listening to all the church bells clanging out their melodious harmonies in honor of holiday and all it represents. It was the longest Easter service I’ve ever attended, completely in Italian, all of us flipping through our pamphlets, earnestly trying to figure out where they were in the service, guessing, and then changing our minds, saying “oh goodness, we haven’t gotten nearly that far.” It was a series of deliberate actions and traditions, a play that the performers had preformed a million times, and everyone had their role down and their lines memorized. There was so much standing and sitting, hand gestures and bowing, and random singing, either in response to something spoken or in response to the choir aloft, their voices echoing throughout the entire building, rounding and dipping through the elaborate golden arches and curves of the ceiling. The choir director, standing at the pulpit, directed the crowd like a choir, and we all stumbled to keep up. To continue the Easter tradition of feasting and to continue our fellowship, we sojourned at a Chinese restaurant.
The rest of the week was spent painting and learning the entire history of art as quickly as humanly possible, and then painting for the rest of the day until the sun sets and you simply cannot paint outside anymore, then collapsing into bed. On Friday night however, as a send off for Jonathan, a new friend we made from the states who was heading home on Sunday, we went to the only blues café in all of Venice and listened to a live blues band, in part to party with Jonathan, and in part to support Ben, who was accompanying the band on his harmonicas. We constantly make fun of him because he carries all 17 of his harmonicas in two pouches attached to a belt so he either looks like a cowboy or a superhero or a construction worker when he wears them, but that kid really can play. There was a point when he and the sax player were battling, one playing and then the other copying, and vice versa, and it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever heard. We all got into the spirit of it, I singing along with the Italian blues singer, who sounded like he was black, and we all started dancing, even though no one else was. However, by the end of the evening, just because we are so awesome, the entire place was dancing. I haven’t had that much fun or sweat that much in a really long time.
Kyle’s blog
Oops almost forgot to type my blog! Last week was rather full. Water coloring class started and I forgot how mentally taxing art could be…
I would like to think that I am improving on my painting skills. On the other hand, at least, I am finding the things I am better at painting. Venetian buildings, for instance, are difficult not only for the beginner, but for the experts as well! I have found seascapes to be the most satisfying work to produce.
In addition, these last two weeks of the semester have been devoted to art history class with Ziogio. Week 12 kicked our butts right back into school! Ha-ha.
The weather has been great. I look forward to seeing my parents in Rome on Friday. Gotta go.
…Happy Birthday, Erikaaaaaaaa!!!!
On the way to San Sebastiano
San Sebastiano
San Sebastiano
At the Arsenale 'vap' stop
Plein aire in San Pietro
Karen demonstrating
San Pietro
Canal San Pietro
San Pietro
Burano
Burano
Riding out to San Francescodel Deserto...Burano in background
Bob Slead Pictures
BSP Gondolier
BSP Lunch in Santi Giovanni e Paolo
BSP Colleoni
BSP The fish market
BSP Fish market
BSP Gondolas
BSP Santi Giovanni e Paolo
RSP Arsenale
BSP Canal
BSP Pixie and Nancy
BSP Maurizio's bus
BSP The 'back of the bus'
BSP Gondolas
April 14, 2010 at 12:49 am |
I sure am enjoying all the pictures that have been posted and I still wish I were there. Have fun Bob and Jo. Ginny