The Rome Art Program began the 1st of June and it got off to a terrific start. Our participants coming to Rome are from Australia, London, USA and they were joined by Italian participants living in Rome.

They began their week by having a big Roman feast in a local restaurant and the following day, painting in the greatest Piazza in Rome, Piazza Navona, where chariot races were held during Roman times. They've also painted at the Pantheon and made drawings at the Trevi Fountain and Bernini's Tritone fountain. All the participants have metro & bus passes and they're using them to get around the city fast, from site to site. On Thursday evening, their bus was stopped by thousands of carabinieri getting ready for a big parade, including horses. They had to get off the bus and walk through these immaculately dressed men, many on horseback. So they ended their journey on foot, to the British School at Rome to hear a young scholar giving a lecture on Pope Sextus V. The BSR is one of the Academies in Rome, where Prix de Rome artists live & work for 1-2 years. Carole Robb, the RAP artistic director is staying at the British School and she gave our participants a tour of the Academy. When the Australians saw the tennis court and the rose garden they said 'Very Raj '.

Peter Miller the RAP art historian, gave our participants a tour of the Philip Guston 'Roma' show that he curated at Museo Carlo Biliotti -38 paintings all based on Guston's experience of living in Rome in the 70's and never been seen as a group before.

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:

top

Empty Fountain

14 x 16"

oil on linen

bottom

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.

Peter Miller, art historian, will arrange a private viewing of the Guston show he's curated in Rome, for our participants on the Rome program. It is a great chance to see the important transitional paintings of a great american artist.

The American Academy has invited our participants for a special tour of the Academy when they're in Rome on our program. On the way up to theAcademy there is the majestic fountain of the Acqua Paola, built in 1612 by Pope Paul V. The Academy occupies ten buildings and eleven acres of gardens atop the Janiculum, the highest hill within the walls of Rome. The gardens and views truly capture the imagination.

Mark Pulsford, faculty, worked on this drawing on-site at the Palatine in the Forum in Rome. This area was where the ancient Roman Civilization developed. One has to walk through the Forum, filled with it's immaculate history, and climb to the top Palatine hill to reach this amazing building. The hike is worth it because it also offer breath taking views of Rome and a marvelous one of the Colosseum.