Fellini's "Roma"

Over the past two weeks, Jan 18-29, Carole Robb has been teaching a drawing marathon and she based the inspiration of the marathon on Fellini's Roma - a movie comprised of vignettes of Fellini's experience and feelings of Rome. The pieces the students composed varied greatly, one artist created pieces with a great feeling of a stage, similar to early Roman paintings. The space was condensed, with an Ensoresque handling of the paint, drawing at once from the still images of the film and the grittiness of Fellini's description.

Another was inspired by the oedipal connotations in the film and created a wonderful piece with a feeling of a mid-career Matisse - with the handling of fabric, a splash of Bonnard - a surprise when you least expect it, and dash of German Expressionism - figuration. The painting works amazing well, capturing the scene with inventiveness, and best of all the amount of gold she used works.

The struggle with this film many had is with its atonal nature. Fellini did an amazing job putting all of these vignettes together and having them hold together without the assistance of a plot. Two artist I thought did a great job handling this. One began, what I hope will become a series, several pieces overlaying heads. Editing out early ones and laying more on top. When viewing them from a distance one can imagine them being roman clouds -- a stair way to heaven. It will be interesting to see how she develops the pieces. The other artist handles it a bit more concretely, using the Colosseum and it arches as a means to tell different stories. She admits and desires push the piece further, but at the moment it is starting to remind me of the first segment of the film New York Stories.

It was a great idea for Carole to base the marathon on Fellini and from what I saw it assisted the artists to begin opening some doors.