Carole Robb

These to paintings are from Carole Robb's series on women and fountains. The majority of the paintings are inspired by the fountains in Rome and through Italy. While traveling to Italy Carole would work on many small paintings and drawings plein-air then she would take the works back to the studio and begin creating monumental works from them. If you are interested in learning more about the series you can either go to her website, via link to the right, or you can go to www.robertsteelegallery.com look her up on the artists page.

Works shown:

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Empty Fountain

14 x 16"

oil on linen

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Painting 1

72 x 84"

oil on linen

Caravaggio v. Michelangelo

A great Caravaggio show will be up while the program is there at the Scuderie del Quirinale - 2.18.10-6.13.10. Amazingly they will be exhibiting 30 out of his 40 works.

There was an article last week in the New York Times laying out the premise that Caravaggio has surpassed Michelangelo in popularity. That people are find Caravaggio's life and work easier to respond to, the photographic elements compared to the mannerist. This is an interesting argument, Michelangelo, with his super-human figures and religious motifs has lost out to an artist who is the ultimate bad-boy and created paintings with street life beating through them. Michelangelo was the establishment, being employed by the Medici family in Florence and the Pope in Rome. Whereas Caravaggio, while being commissioned by some of the wealthiest clientele, still was constantly running from the police, getting into brawls, and chasing women/men. It is an interesting article that I find some merit in but it will be better to judge in person. Rome and Florence will provide the perfect opportunity to see both the Caravaggio show and Michelangelo's pieces.

"Corot to Monet"

There will be another major exhibition while our participants are in Rome, "Corot to Monet," the Museo del Vittoriano in Piazza Venezia will host the show from March 6 to June 29. A few of the Impressionist artist in the exhibition will be Corot, Monet, Sisley and Pissarro, some of the works displayed will be from their travels to Italy. On display are
some 150 works including paintings, works on paper and vintage photographs. It will be interesting to see if the change in setting will change our interpretation of the paintings.