January Painting of the Month

2020, a new decade, maybe an allegory of perfect vision. I thought I might start the new decade with a peer back a hundred years to 1920 and celebrate that great but complicated British artist, Sir Stanley Spencer. My Painting of the month is The Bridge from that year. Spencer brings the excitement of the…

December Painting of the Month

Christmas looks like it is here again with trees and baubles everywhere. Italy is a little behind the U.K. in decorations but still good to see the trees and lights appearing here after the disastrous floods last month. Having seen so many biblical pictures recently I thought I would choose a different theme for my…

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

“Water, water, every where,  And all the boards did shrink;  Water, water, every where,  Nor any drop to drink.” Immortal lines from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s great poem of 1834, which I enjoyed and still remember class reading at school. So with me flitting back and forth between Venice and North Gloucestershire floods, I thought an…

November Painting of the Month

My Painting of the Month for November comes from the inspirational Indian  pavilion at the Venice Biennale. “Zameen”, 1955, a controversial frieze painting, several feet long, from 1955; it has been alternatively praised and vilified by critics over the years but has become an established icon of Indian Modern Art.  The theme is typical of twentieth…

October Painting of the Month

Venice. Where does one begin? There is so much wonderful art and architecture in this city, it is difficult to know. The Accademia, which is the city’s traditional gallery helped inform that choice by opening its doors to the public for free entry today. After the queues subsided late afternoon we browsed in relative calm,…