Wedding photo shoot, complete with reflector, prone photographer, and married couple. What's the location? |
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Wedding Photo Shoot
Monday, December 22, 2014
JMW Turner's Rome paintings - new light, new film, new prices
Modern Rome - Campo Vaccino |
Mike Leigh's new biopic, Mr.Turner, focuses on the last 25
years of the painter’s life, but does not include the Rome
years. Yet the film brings to life this
often underrated - especially in Rome - painter. One of the Rome paintings is seen quickly in the
film at some point - as I recall, the Forum
Romanum for Mr. Soane's Museum (see below); and the movie helps us
understand the eccentric Turner's love of light and ability with color.
Turner's Rome paintings also are in the news for their recent
sales. The Getty LA bought Modern Rome - Campo Vaccino (at top) in 2010 for $45 million, a record for a
Turner at that time. The British
government placed an embargo on the painting, hoping a British museum would
raise the money to buy it so it would not leave the country. None did, and so the Getty now owns this
acknowledged masterpiece. Modern Rome,
a view over the forum, exhibits Turner’s exceptional ability to capture the
real and the idealized views with an extraordinary mastery of color. The Getty describes the work as follows:
"Ten years after his
final journey to Rome, Turner envisioned the Eternal City through a veil of
memory. Baroque churches and ancient monuments in and around the Roman Forum
seem to dissolve in iridescent light shed by a moon rising at left and a sun
setting behind the Capitoline Hill at right. Amidst these splendors, the city's
inhabitants carry on with their daily activities. The picture's nacreous
palette and shimmering light effects exemplify Turner at his most accomplished.
When first exhibited at the
Royal Academy in 1839 with its pendant, Ancient Rome; Agrippina Landing with
the Ashes of Germanicus, the painting was accompanied by a modified quotation
from Lord Byron's masterpiece, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1818): "The
moon is up, and yet it is not night / The sun as yet divides the day with
her." Like the poem, Turner's painting evokes the enduring sublimity of
Rome, which had been for artists throughout history less a place in the real
world than one in the imagination.
The painting is in a
remarkable state of preservation and remains untouched since it left Turner's
hands."
Given that last statement, we're not sure why it's not yet on
display at the Getty. [UPDATE: The Getty is hosting what looks like a magnificent Turner exhibit Feb. 24-May 24, 2015 - and it looks like this painting will be in the exhibit. It's one of 3 paintings on the Web site announcing the exhibit.]
Just this December 3, another Turner Rome painting - Rome, From Mount Aventine, painted in 1835 (at left), sold for $47.5 million, setting yet another record (the estimated value going into the Sotheby's auction was 15-20 million pounds; it sold for 30.3 million pounds). It was the first time the painting had been sold in more than 130 years.
Just this December 3, another Turner Rome painting - Rome, From Mount Aventine, painted in 1835 (at left), sold for $47.5 million, setting yet another record (the estimated value going into the Sotheby's auction was 15-20 million pounds; it sold for 30.3 million pounds). It was the first time the painting had been sold in more than 130 years.
Turner was an inveterate sketcher (also shown in Leigh's film),
and no doubt used his many sketches to paint Modern Rome 10 years, and Rome, From Mount Aventine, 7 years (respectively) after he left the city. Those sketchbooks also are the property of
the Tate, and can be viewed online as well.
Vision of Medea - one of the 3 works exhibited in Rome in 1928 and on display at the Tate Britain when I saw it. |
Turner was born in 1775 to working class parents (his father was a wigmaker,
and then, when those went out of style, astutely turned to being a barber). The painter's early work under
architects perhaps explains some of his life-long attraction to architectural
forms, which served him well in Rome.
As noted above, another great Rome painting is Forum Romanum for Mr. Soane's Museum. Soane was an architect - so the architectural
themes play out again here. (And if you
haven't been to the Soane Museum in London, put it on your Top Ten list!) This painting, however, ended up as part of
Turner's bequest to the government; so it apparently never went to Soane's
museum; why, I don't know.
Perhaps the most famous Rome painting is Rome, from the Vatican. Raffaelle, Accompanied by La Fornarina,
Preparing his Pictures for the Decoration of the Loggia, exhibited
1820 (above). Raphael was one of Turner's
influences and 1820 marked the 300th year of Raphael's death.
So why the Turner Exhibit at the Tate - including one on view now of "Late Turner"? Turner bequeathed the government all the
paintings, sketches, and sketchbooks in his possession at his death, with a
plan to establish a fund for needy artists.
The fund never materialized, but more than a century later, the Turner
Society raised enough money for the exhibition space for this vast collection
at the Tate. Many of the works are on
permanent display there.
Turner is sometimes called the painter of light, and these Rome
paintings exhibit that quality. He
supposedly said on his deathbed (and as replicated in Mike Leigh’s
film), "The Sun is God," attributing a kind of metaphysical power to
light.
Thursday, December 18, 2014
Snoopy comes to Montecelio
We found this bar in the small town of Montecelio, above the city of Guidonia, about an hour northeast of Rome's center. It has the sophisticated look of a franchise, but the chances are that the folks who own the rights to Snoopy's image are not aware of this establishment and have not granted permission for its use. I had my own experience with Italian disregard for international property rights some years ago, when an historical essay of mine was translated and reprinted in an Italian collection, entirely without the knowledge and permission of the author or the copyright holder--the Journal of American History. I was pleased to see it reprinted in Italian, but surprised that no one asked beforehand, or told me about it on publication. I found out years later. Bill
Saturday, December 13, 2014
Grocery Store Surprises: a Rome SMA
Different kind of cart |
Underdressed shopper |
Despite the similarities, as a tourist one can still be surprised at what one finds inside one of those Rome supermarkets. On our last visit to the city, we were regular customers at a SMA, tucked in behind the basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano.
The first surprise was a scantily clad cut-out in one of the aisles. It's safe to say you'll see nothing quite this provocative in the US, where prudishness--or one might say decorum--prevails.
Culture at Checkout |
The second surprise was of another sort altogether. Across from the checkout lanes was a series of murals, illustrating the store's neighborhood setting, but nostalgically so, in a era before the automobile.
One of the murals (above right) featured a piazza and courtyard on the backside of San Giovanni in Laterano--a place seen by thousands of Romans from their automobiles every day, but one seldom visited and relatively obscure.
Another mural was more of a mystery. The scene depicted somewhat resembles the intersection of via Druso and viale delle Terme di Caracalla, perhaps a mile from the store. The curious "booth" at the center looks like one at that intersection, and the ruins in the background may be the baths. No matter, we loved the dash of "culture" at the checkout counter! Bill
Terme di Caracalla? |
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Mario Sironi, the Melancholy Fascist. A review by Frederika Randall
Pittsburgh-born guest blogger/reviewer Frederika Randall is a long time resident of Italy. She is a superb translator of Italian works into English, including 3 books by historian Sergio Luzzatto; a near impossible task - the translation of Luigi Meneghello; and her latest achievement, Ippolito Nievo's important 19th-century novel, Confessions of an Italian. She also writes for The Nation and for the Italian weekly Internazionale. Her other contributions to the RST blog include treatments of Roman poet Giuseppe Gioachino Belli, the Partisan anthem "Bella Ciao," and the 2013 Vittoriano exhibit on artist Renato Guttuso.
---------------------------------------------------------
You have a great artist in your midst, perhaps
the greatest of these times, and you don’t know it. Picasso, addressing feckless 20th-century Italians, was talking about Mario Sironi. It was a peculiar tribute,
coming from a man who belonged to the Communist party until the day he died. While
Sironi, on the other hand, was a believing Fascist even before1921, when he
began working as graphic artist for Mussolini’s paper, Il Popolo d'Italia and the review Gerarchia. He even adhered to the Republic of Salò, the
German-backed Italian puppet state of 1943-45, and that was much more of a
minority camp than Fascism ever was.
For a taste of this political outlier—and yes, great painter—I recommend Sironi 1885-1961 show at the Complesso del Vittoriano in Rome until February 8, 2015. There are ninety paintings, graphic works and sketches for murals neatly organized to follow the artist’s life path: born in 1885, studies in
engineering, a nervous breakdown, art school, meeting Boccioni and Balla, Futurism, the Novecento, bleak urban landscapes, a brief Metaphysical phase, Fascist illustration, publicity for automaker Fiat, an Expressionist turn, followed by the huge murals commissioned by Mussolini for new Fascist public buildings in Milan and Rome.
This exhibit, the
first in Italy dedicated to Sironi in twenty years, was curated by art
historian Elena Pontiggia, who provides a very useful biographical framework to
hang the artwork on, both in a short film and the good wall quotes.
This doesn’t quite compensate for the fact that not many of Sironi’s greatest paintings are on
display, or that this show is much smaller than that of 1994,
which had 400
artworks. But Pontiggia does bring out a crucial fact: that Sironi was a life-long depressive, a man of melancholy who it would seem should have been quite unsuited to the Fascist regime’s celebration of might and right.
Yet Sironi’s most powerful
works are those that don’t celebrate Fascism, modernity, or industry. His urban
landscapes, some of them painted in the early 1920s, others after World War II, are
haunting, and haunted. When in 1922 he produced one of several paintings titled
Urban Landscape, Sironi was staying
alone in a cheap hotel in Milan, too poor to bring his new wife there to live
with him. Dusty white and brick-colored industrial buildings, a great black swath
of train track, a tiny tram and a tiny truck. The only thing that looks animate
in the composition is the lowering green and grey sky.
In another cityscape
shown here, an ashy black truck stands immobile where two utterly empty streets
of factories and warehouses intersect. There is no life or movement in the
painting, just beautiful volumes. Once again, only the sky is alive, with big
brushstrokes of smoke and cloud.
In another urban landscape painted in 1920, a hard brown wall hides what seems to be a construction site. Again, the night sky is roiling overhead. Sironi is no longer celebrating the dynamism of the machine that was Futurism’s trademark. The only thing that’s dynamic is the air. When it comes to the work he did in the 1930s, Fascism’s heyday, the show tries to persuade us that although he worked for the cause, his murals and wall decorations (here, sketches for his mosaic Justice Between Law and Force in the Milan Court of Assizes) were never propaganda for Fascism. But like so many efforts to rescue Sironi from his politics, this doesn’t really ring true. Fascism was not just Blackshirts and castor oil; it was a political creed based on just the kind of myths that Sironi produced in his large allegorical murals. They embody a kind of immobilism, an image of the best of all possible worlds that need never change. Sironi was happy to accept those mural commissions because he wanted to make art for the people, not for bourgeois sitting rooms. But that, too, was a thread of Fascism.
---------------------------------------------------------
![]() |
Sironi, Self Portrait |
For a taste of this political outlier—and yes, great painter—I recommend Sironi 1885-1961 show at the Complesso del Vittoriano in Rome until February 8, 2015. There are ninety paintings, graphic works and sketches for murals neatly organized to follow the artist’s life path: born in 1885, studies in
engineering, a nervous breakdown, art school, meeting Boccioni and Balla, Futurism, the Novecento, bleak urban landscapes, a brief Metaphysical phase, Fascist illustration, publicity for automaker Fiat, an Expressionist turn, followed by the huge murals commissioned by Mussolini for new Fascist public buildings in Milan and Rome.
Things looked bad for Sironi when the Liberation came on April 25, 1945. He took the road out of
Milan toward Como and Switzerland, like many Fascists who feared partisan
reprisals, and not wrongly. On foot, his dog on a leash by his side, Sironi was
stopped at a partisan checkpoint, and only when the poet and children’s writer
(and partisan) Gianni Rodari stepped in, was he saved from being shot. After
the war, Sironi continued painting, and the vein of melancholy that colors
everything he produced seems to have deepened into something like despair.
There was no place for a man like him in a postwar Italy where all the artists
and intellectuals were anti-Fascists.

This doesn’t quite compensate for the fact that not many of Sironi’s greatest paintings are on
artworks. But Pontiggia does bring out a crucial fact: that Sironi was a life-long depressive, a man of melancholy who it would seem should have been quite unsuited to the Fascist regime’s celebration of might and right.
Even as a young man Sironi would close himself up in his rooms, seeing
no-one, drawing obsessively. “He’ll copy a Greek head 20 or 25 times!!!” reported Boccioni (exclamation marks his). The
Futurists disapproved of antiquated art.
![]() |
Urban Landscape, 1922 |
![]() |
The Yellow Truck, 1918 |
The Yellow Truck, 1918, is another work from this period. Big
rough brushstrokes, in part painted on newsprint, it suggests a Futurist
enthusiasm for the vehicle itself that is utterly absent in urban scenes done even
a few years later.
![]() |
Urban Landscape, 1920 |
In another urban landscape painted in 1920, a hard brown wall hides what seems to be a construction site. Again, the night sky is roiling overhead. Sironi is no longer celebrating the dynamism of the machine that was Futurism’s trademark. The only thing that’s dynamic is the air. When it comes to the work he did in the 1930s, Fascism’s heyday, the show tries to persuade us that although he worked for the cause, his murals and wall decorations (here, sketches for his mosaic Justice Between Law and Force in the Milan Court of Assizes) were never propaganda for Fascism. But like so many efforts to rescue Sironi from his politics, this doesn’t really ring true. Fascism was not just Blackshirts and castor oil; it was a political creed based on just the kind of myths that Sironi produced in his large allegorical murals. They embody a kind of immobilism, an image of the best of all possible worlds that need never change. Sironi was happy to accept those mural commissions because he wanted to make art for the people, not for bourgeois sitting rooms. But that, too, was a thread of Fascism.
![]() |
Urban Landscape, 1922 |
![]() |
My Funeral, 1960 |
After the war, Sironi
continued to paint, and there are several more gloomy cityscapes here, often
painted in a thick impasto of brown, blue and white, that are very striking. He
died in 1961, not before producing a small tempera work, My Funeral, in which a tiny hearse in one corner of the picture is
followed by a tiny handful of mourners. “Let us hope that after so many storms,
so many gales, so much bestial suffering,” he wrote, “that there will
nevertheless be a port for this miserable heart to find peace and quiet."
Fifty years later, his reputation as an artist has been largely detached
from his role as a Fascist, but you couldn’t exactly say he rests in peace.
Frederika Randall, Rome
Monday, December 1, 2014
Marcello and Sophia's Wild Ride in the South of Rome OR, an RST itinerary for the Jet Set
![]() |
Sophia - photo explanation below |
Arizona State
University historian friends of ours asked us to lay out an auto itinerary for
them… outside Rome, à la the second time.
We asked what they liked – small towns (we’re okay at that), beaches
(hmmm, we’re not so good at that).
We came
up with an itinerary mainly to the south of Rome that includes the Castelli
Romani, Norma/Norba, the Mussolini-created town of Latina (near the beaches),
Anzio (more beaches + WWII), Ostia (more beaches), and Ostia Antica. The itinerary is a full and interesting one,
developed mostly by Bill. We’ve included Bill's original itinerary at the end of this post; for those RSTers who want to go farther afield.
Brian and
Cathy amended the trip somewhat, as we hoped they would. They went off in a convertible with an
unusual June rainstorm looming and added more religious sites – the latter makes
sense since Catherine – of the Loren car scarf - is a specialist in Catholic
church history.
Brian dutifully
wrote us a report of their trip – which we found interesting and funny and fun. And he included photos. We asked him if we could use his text and
photos as a guest blog post. In a weak
moment, he said “yes” – and so it follows (again, with Bill’s original
itinerary and a map at the end):
I will send in a moment a link
to a set of photographs that will bore you [included
rather than linked here, and photos of Italy never bore us], but they do
demonstrate a high level of compliance to your commands. Obedience paid nice
dividends, thank you very much. Our getaway into the Castelli Romani was
smooth, and the temperature dropped 10 degrees—on the road trip the front
brought in rain, but not all the time, hence Marcello and Sophia
(pictured) looked really sharp with the ragtop down, RayBans on.
![]() |
Norma - and to the left, Norba |
I freaked out over Norma, its
precarious position alone quite stimulating save when drunk.


We dropped down onto the malarial plane [the Agro Pontino] and found it a place not unlike
Phoenix…agriculture being king as it once was in that American desert
city. And, like that city, there are some pretty conservative views
there, as a photo of a sign on the gate to a “pilgrim’s way” suggests.
Someone with an engineering sense had laid out these weird, for
Italy, straight roads called migliara [ok,
Brian – that refers to “miles”]. Once we found these we were
set. Primarily to head back to the hills and examine monasteries that my
perfect spouse insists on visiting. I think she prays in them, god
forbid. Indeed, it was claimed we stood in the very cell in which Thomas of
Aquinas died, joining in that moment the natural law with the divine one.
I attach a shot of me standing around while Loren recited the rosary, and of
the cool Solomon’s riddle that the Cistercian monks had placed in the chapter
room of their truly beautiful abbey. 
We surmised that, desperate for customers, he had decided that the
Americans were going to get a “big pig feast” all right, just not the one we
indicated. It was grand, as was the cool castle at the top of the town
where we listened, with some comprehension, to the tale of the Castiglione,
dukes of the town and of the pestilential plain, one of whom, at the battle of
Lepanto, met a fetching Aragonesa and married her, bringing Spanish ducados
into the ducato.
![]() |
Sermoneta |
As we returned we visited Anzio, a sad thing really, all those
young, slender boys with smiles on their faces and guns in their hands. Going
along the road to Ostia Antica, with its mosaics and its Roman playwright’s
coffin carved in honor of the muse, we encountered what Bill once did, a sign
for a bar named Tom and Jerry, a reminder of my purpose in life, which is, it
appears, to give a TnJ party every year.
Ciao!
PS… threw in your picture again, as a sign of thanks for being so
kind to us. We offer sincere congratulations for finishing the f*!@#g
wall. [You may surmise that Brian accompanied us on one of our “wall walks” of
Rome. That section was posted on the blog in early November. From his comment,
you may – or may not – want to replicate that section of the wall, esp. in
blistering Rome heat.]
The itinerary as offered by us:
Hi Brian and Cathy,
"Small towns, a beach" isn't much to go on. But with those guidelines, here's something you might like:
"Small towns, a beach" isn't much to go on. But with those guidelines, here's something you might like:
1. First
day. Drive into the Alban Hills (Colli Albani/Castelli Romani)
on highway 7, catching towns of Castel Gandolfo (Pope's summer
residence, town just OK, not so fascinating; view spectacular), Albano
(great cistern there, better town), Genzano (famous for Pane (bread) Genzano);
Ariccia (home of porchetta, and a Bernini church, castle, etc., one of our
favorite towns). There are two lakes up there, Albano and Nemi (smaller),
though if you choose to explore them you likely won't be able to reach your
"destination" (Norma), archeological sites, etc. Then through
Velletri (site of 5th army breakthrough; mostly rebuilt after the war) and
onto an area on the fringe of the Monte Lepini that's pretty cool.
Latter includes Ninfa (an amazing park-like area, sometimes open to the
public - on the flats before Norma/Norba) and, on the bluff, Norma
(where's there's a hotel - and it's decent). Norma is paired with
"Norba" - an ancient Roman site, mostly buried now and the land used
for grazing - but Norba/Norma is spectacular area for views and
distinctive tiny town.
2. Day 2
Drive southwest off the bluff and (back) onto the flat plain of the Agro
Pontino, once famous for mosquitos, then for eradicating them, to the town of
Latina, one of several in this area constructed by the Mussolini regime.
Nifty Fascist-era modernism. Don't miss the "M" building. From
there, over to Nettuno/Anzio, where the allies landed and where I assume you
can find a beach. Good (if idiosyncratic; run by an individual) World War
II museum and, of course, cemeteries. OR from Latina you can head to the
coast and go SOUTH, cruising along a spectacular beach /Lido, spending some
time in another of the Fascist cities, Sabaudia, and finding your way (not far)
to Monte Circeo, which you can hike--it's not hard and there's a great view from
the top up the coast. There are hotels in Circeo and wine (labeled
Circeo) is made there. If you stop short of Circeo, there's another very
small fascist town, Pontinia, which has one (good) hotel. Note that the
hotels often have the best dinners. It's sometimes not easy to find good
dinner eating (lunch, yes - including full meal lunches) in small towns.
3. Day 3
(assuming you don't head south on Day 2).
From Anzio you can either shoot straight north to Aprilia, then left to Pomezia (both Mussolini towns) or putter along the coast going northwest til you find a good beach. Lido di Ostia is a great large beach town and has some wonderful modernist architecture. From there, head toward Rome to Ostia Antica, the 2000 year old port city, the remains of which are quite something. Then to Rome. OR if you're into the Etruscan scene, continue NW to Cerveteri for some quality time with tombs. Another good beach town, instead of the more crowded Ostia, is Fregene. You can get access to public beaches in all these places (though many beaches are private), and there's a good public one in Fregene. Then to Rome. You can also do Ostia and Ostia Antica by train from Rome. Fregene no.
Nota bene: though we've seen everything mentioned above, we have never done this as a three day itinerary, and we don't know your habits, whether you're into 3-hour lunches, etc. Some of the roads are very curvy and slow, others straight and fast. Traffic and curvy mountain roads will slow you down, maybe significantly. So it's hard to know if this sequence will work for you.
You'll need a Lazio map to get a sense of distances and to plan in detail.
Hope this helps!
Bill (and Dianne)
From Anzio you can either shoot straight north to Aprilia, then left to Pomezia (both Mussolini towns) or putter along the coast going northwest til you find a good beach. Lido di Ostia is a great large beach town and has some wonderful modernist architecture. From there, head toward Rome to Ostia Antica, the 2000 year old port city, the remains of which are quite something. Then to Rome. OR if you're into the Etruscan scene, continue NW to Cerveteri for some quality time with tombs. Another good beach town, instead of the more crowded Ostia, is Fregene. You can get access to public beaches in all these places (though many beaches are private), and there's a good public one in Fregene. Then to Rome. You can also do Ostia and Ostia Antica by train from Rome. Fregene no.
Nota bene: though we've seen everything mentioned above, we have never done this as a three day itinerary, and we don't know your habits, whether you're into 3-hour lunches, etc. Some of the roads are very curvy and slow, others straight and fast. Traffic and curvy mountain roads will slow you down, maybe significantly. So it's hard to know if this sequence will work for you.
You'll need a Lazio map to get a sense of distances and to plan in detail.
Hope this helps!
Bill (and Dianne)
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