Pandemic Diaries - Italian Interlude 1 October and 8 October

1 October & 8 October 2022 – Orvieto all day

 

Orvieto is another all day visit, another hour or so drive to get there and to return.  It also is another city with a huge and well-known cathedral, full of paintings by famous Renaissance artists.  I know, it’s a gorgeous cathedral, with a striped exterior of alternating layers of white marble and green-grey travertine.  The front façade is covered in carvings, mosaics, and paintings portraying Biblical stories, often with golden backgrounds glowing in sunlight.  The interior has carved alabaster, marble, frescoes galore.  

 

The reason for such a sumptuous house of worship is one of those stories based on religious belief or faith in miracles.  There was a priest who wasn’t sure about the transubstantiation concept, but then an altar cloth was stained by the bread bleeding – and of course this priest took the cloth to the pope of the time who was visiting Orvieto.  Such a miraculous occurrence required a giant and ornate cathedral.

 

But coming from a different religious background, I find all this art overwhelming.  I like my houses of worship to have a feeling of peace and tranquility, and Orvieto is, well, diametrically opposed to that feeling.  Instead, it feels like the Renaissance citizens hired every important architect, sculptor, and painter of the day and told them money was not a problem.  (I don’t know that as fact, it just looks like that to me.)  However, the church does look rather overly decorative, and I personally find that to be too much visual information, and go into sensory overload.  Plus the horizonal lines on the walls and columns, especially in the interior, just make me dizzy!

 

So I spent a little time in the Orvieto Duomo.  Admired the frescoes by wonderful Signorelli (a series of post-Apocalypse paintings, complete with everyone who is resurrected from being dead to now alive, naked, happy, and youthful, which is rather amusing).  But yes, I hit that brain full and eyes overwhelmed point, and so wandered on outside for a bit.  

 

Orvieto has wonderful ceramics, one of three locations in Italy that is known for their majollica ceramics.  (Deruta is the most famous.)  I spent some time watching ceramicists painting on the glaze, and admired several shops full of gorgeous pottery items.  

 

It also seems to be a town of woodworkers, all who have a sense of humor.  We kept finding odd little statues or store signs made of wood that were, well, funny and quirky!  It could make a wonderful sort of scavenger hunt, trying to find certain statues!

 

In Keiko's class, we were in Orvieto on Saturday, and there were two locations for farmer's markets and various local produce.  One was right by the street we used to walk from the parking lot into town.  The other was in one of the large central piazzas.  There was also something called the "passaggiata del gusto," which sort of translates to a taste walk.  Most of the stands in the two market sites were offering tastes of their wares, all of which were quite yummy.  (I love the bites of cheese with local honey!)

Additionally, there was a wine tasting event, where participants were given a hanging ticket pouch to hold a wine glass, the wine glass, and the entry ticket to all the wine tasting sites.  We only saw the tent and tables for this in that central piazza, but we saw the people wandering around with their wine glasses, all day long.  It looked like quite the event!

My favorite, though, was the man selling homemade jams and marmalades from local fruits and grapes.  It wasn't so much his product as the packaging that caught my eye.  Each jar had a label color-coded for the fruit or grape variety.  Then each jar had a metal lid hidden under a colorful square of fabric, tied on with white string.  Easy assembly for him (or whoever did the work), but very colorful and eye-catching for browsing people like myself.

He was busy selling, but told me it would be fine to take photos.  He really had a beautiful display, and I told him it was "bellissima!"  Big smile!  Once I finished with my photos, I whipped out my sketchbook and pencil, and did a very simple and basic outline to later add paint.  I gave him a "grazie, signore!  Mille grazie!"  He smiled, thanked me, I wandered out.

Keiko and Anne had set up to paint while I was inside, so I sat on some steps and painted my sketch.  Eh, it's okay, I think my background got too dark and it overpowers the rest of the image.  However, I really like my quick take on the fabric-covered jam jars!

But in Nancie's class, possibly on our first day, I used one of the photos so I could re-draw more accurately on my watercolor block.  Took me a couple of days, this was a rather involved painting.  And in watercolor, artists usually paint around anything white, leaving naked white paper.  So all those little strings tied around each jam jar top, and a reflection on the glass jar?  Yes, naked paper - meaning I had a whole lot of painting around the bows to make it vaguely realistic.

I really like my final painting, though, and think it's one of my best from the summer.

 

Okay, back to Keiko's class - we went to a great place for lunch, called Febo.  As in Phoebus Apollo, but in Italian, not Anglicized Greek.  I thanked the owner for naming it after me.  (Apollo's sister, Phebe Artemis - for those who don't remember their Greek mythology.)  They really had great Italian food, but they also have burgers and are a microbrewery.  So when in Orvieto, look for them up the street with all the amazing wood cut-out people sculptures.

 

We walked around some more, then checked out the outskirts of town, and spent the late afternoon sketching or painting while standing on the old wall at one end of the city.  It sounds strange, I know, standing on the wall.  These walls are thick, as in wide enough for a horse and chariot or carriage for drive along the top.  Or horses to drag cannons so soldiers could shoot invaders.  We’re talking walls that are one and a half to two yards/meters wide.  So there’s plenty of room to walk, set up an easel, paint – or, like me, use the crenellated edge or a window as a table while sketching the scenery.  Or, like me, sketching a lamp post on the wall with the scenery beyond.  What can I say, I like details like lamp posts.  (Drawn in aquarelle pencil, then quick brush of water to turn it into a watercolor sketch.)

 

We met some really nice cats wandering around along this wall, too.

 

During the second class, a few friends and I started at the big artisan market, though it turned out to be more like outdoor stalls selling clothing, produce, and only a few stalls that actually had handmade arts and crafts sort of things.  Lots of pretty earring, though I kept myself from buying any.  I like taking photos of the produce, though, the fruit and veg displays always look like mosaics to me.

 

After all that browsing, we then found a little sandwich shop and tried the traditional Umbrian roasted pork sandwiches – known as porchetta.  Our sandwiches came on lovely rolls, with piles of seasoned and roasted pork, wedges of some kind of cheese, and all smeared liberally with “crème di tartufi,” black truffle sauce.  It was delicious, though rather fatty, and I couldn’t finish the bread.  But the roast pork, cheese, and truffle made for a winning combo!

 

While they went into the cathedral, I walked around a bit more.  And then wandered into a gelato shop, both to get a small cup of gelato but also to use their restroom.  I sat outside, enjoying the delightful combination of dark chocolate and coffee gelato – and heard a bit of commotion behind me.  I turned to look, and sure enough, somehow the door was locked and a few customers and the staff were locked in!!!  I just had to laugh as another employee on the outside tried to jiggle and jimmy the door open.  Never did see how it turned out, but I saved the story for our own locked-in lady, and she and I had a good laugh.

 

We all met up to see Nancie’s work, and she set up for another demo.  The painting she did while the rest of us were playing was at a scenic overlook just to the right of the cathedral, so I wandered over there for the view.  There was a huge castle-like building on a small hill, apparently a former monastery turned hotel, according to the Italian men I consulted.  So I spent about an hour sketching the building and adding just a hint of the surrounding scenery.  This was again drawing with the watercolor pencil, then using a paintbrush with water to turn it into a painting.  Later in the studio, I added a faint green wash to hint at the hills, and used a darker green to add more suggestion of trees and shrubs.

 

We left Orvieto a bit early because we had a special event planned for that evening.  But that requires an entirely separate blog post, so hold on, and hopefully in a day or two I can write a description of what we did.  And eventually there will be photos – if ever a story needed photos, it will be what happens next!!!