Pandemic Diaries - Italian Interlude 30 September and 11 October

30 September and 11 October – Assisi all day

 

Assisi is about an hour drive from La Romita, so this is usually an all-day trip.  Yes, it’s home to the Basilica of San Francesco, St. Frances.  And the basilica has amazing frescoes by artists like Cimabue and Giotto.  The “lower” church is the older portion, with frescoes painted during the late 1200s and 1300s.  I personally find these rather dark and dismal, and usually stick with the “upper” church with the Giotto paintings.  Still a rather overly-decorated church, but there’s an airier feeling with the soaring vaulted ceilings.  And Giotto is known for painting individuals, people who look different and portray different emotions, rather than looking like clones lined up the way earlier paintings portray the various saints and followers.

The other interesting church in Assisi is the Chiesa Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, the Church of Saint Mary in the Roman temple of Minerva!  Really, the exterior is the old Roman temple complete with marble columns and everything!  It seems incongruous, but I guess the early Christians decided they might as well use this lovely building since it was still in good shape.  It makes sense, however odd it might seem.  (Minerva was once the goddess of war, so even when she developed into the goddess of wisdom, she still is portrayed wearing a helmet and shield.)

 

We spent some time wandering around the city, but actually spent more time in a paint store than in the churches.  

 

We did visit the churches, but the paint store is just special!  This wasn’t just any paint store, this was a shop that makes its own watercolor paints from ground pigments.  They also carry ground minerals and pigments for people who make their own paints, or who still paint frescoes.  The shop is just magical, with jars of colors that seem to glow!  Pure pigments are really gorgeous colors.  

 

This particular store makes their watercolors using pigment and honey.  This is one of the older ways of making watercolor paint, because honey is a natural product that also holds up quite well.  Modern watercolor paints are often made with glycerine as a binder.  (Tempera paint used egg as a binder, and oil paint just used linseed oil with the ground pigment.)

 

I succumbed to the lure of these amazing paints, and bought a mini paint set, just six colors in pans, all set in a mini tin.  The store allows people to either buy one of their sets with preselected colors, or we're able to choose our own colors.  So wonderful to pick the colors I know I use most frequently, whether straight from the pan or to mix the secondary colors!  

 

Perfect pocket-sized paint set, and it even came with a retractable brush (size 6 round, which is what I use most often).  I think this will be my new travel paint set!  It's so small, it'll fit in a pocket, or in my purse!  (Their website is:  https://www.agallocolors.com)  

 

I took some photos of the store shelves, the jars of pigment are just amazing colors!  But I want to make those photos extra large, so they'll be in with the end photos.

 

After a while, it began to drizzle, so we found shelter under a large arch for drawing and painting.  Given the damp, I just sketched with drawing pens – a bit of architecture with two women discussing something in front of our arch.  And a window with a small statue of San Francesco leaning on the stone side.  I named that sketch “San Francesco of the Old Clothes” because this basic wood statue was wearing what looked like the worn out sleeve of a jacket as his robe, and a bit of wool sock for his hat.  Perfect portrayal of a former prince who abdicated from his position and took a vow of poverty!  I'm happier with that sketch; the two women are okay, but the chunkier woman looks too stiff, like a mannequin, and I think that plus her stiff arm just bothers me.  She definitely was gesturing as she spoke, though, including pointing somewhere vaguely overhead(ish).

 

It began to rain in earnest, so we hurried to a warm restaurant for lunch.  Mmmm, risotto with zucchini flowers and black truffles – yum!  Followed by a salad, and then a cappuccino.  When in Italy, eat like an Italian, right?  Except a true Italian would never drink cappuccino that late in the day, I've been told.  (Yes, lunch is too late for cappuccino, which is considered a breakfast drink.)

 

The rain let up a bit, so after visiting the cathedral and admiring Giotto's wonderful frescoes, we walked back toward the parking area, but got caught in more rain.  Oh well, all that wet made for interesting umbrella reflections on the stone streets and walkways – I think that will make a fun painting when I have time.  This also made me very happy to have packed a really waterproof jacket.  I’ve never encountered so much rain in Italy on prior visits, but then, I’ve never been here in October before, either.  This is why I wasn’t able to do carryon luggage, sneakers and rain jacket and art supplies.

 

We made it back to La Romita in time to dry off and warm up before dinner.  I was working in the studio when a thunderstorm began – at least it’s nice and cozy in the studio.  The dinner bell rang, and I was in the process of putting my supplies away when there was a sudden extra-loud crash of thunder and immediate lightning – I looked out the huge chapel window in time to see an arc of bright orange sparks shooting off the power lines off to the west!!!!

 

I ran out of the studio and over to the dining hall in the pouring rain, only to realize the lights were off in the dining hall!  The staff were holding mobile phones on the flashlight app while looking for candles, but I said oh, I have the perfect solution!  I ran back to the dorms to my room, and grabbed my Luci lights!  These are solar-powered inflatable lights, perfect for camping or anyone who lives in a region where the power goes out periodically.  I packed them because I thought they’d be great for sitting outside sipping wine in the evening, as well as instead of memorial candles on the cruise.  Turned out they were perfect for our lights-out dinner, as well!

 

Plus my Luci lights have multiple colors – just press the button on the base, and it changes colors!  Edmund managed to flip the breaker switch or something and return power to the dining hall, but we left the Luci lights on anyway, and periodically changed colors, just because we could.  (My lights are maybe 4” in diameter, and when deflated squish down to nearly flat, less that .5” thick.  Worth the minimal space in the luggage!)

 

My second visit to Assisi with Nancie’s class was much less dramatic.  Though she did a wonderful demonstration just outside the basilica, and you can see her work in this photo.  (She really is a master of pastel, isn’t she?)  There are tricks to not getting a big muddy mess, which is what I tend to make with pastels.  First trick is to start with all the darks and the shadows – and then brush on alcohol to set the darks!  Who knew?  But having always painted with either acrylic, watercolor, or oil, I’m used to working from light to dark – it really is baffling to think of working the darkest parts first, and then going to the middle range colors and then finishing with the lightest!

 

There were all kinds of metal dragon embellishments on lights, buildings, whatnot.  Made me wonder about it, were dragons somehow the emblem of Assisi?  I would think not, the town's flag has a lion rampant (standing upright on two feet).  I've tried researching the dragons in Assisi, and no, there doesn't seem to be much of a connection.  Maybe some people here just really like dragons.

 

During both visits, there were tons of priests, monks, nuns, and other various clergy or acolytes walking around.  I don’t know enough about Catholic orders to know which were which, but I did find the large groups of people in dark robes with hoods a bit disconcerting.  Seriously, to me they looked like they were planning the next Inquisition or something like that.  Something about a dozen or so men in dark hooded robes that just looks ominous!!!  

 

But at least we had a lovely sunny day for our second visit.  We found a fabulous bakery/gelato shop in an old old palazzo with a gelato flavor named "pinguino" - penguin!  (Vanilla inside, thin layer of chocolate on top.)  And a lovely lunch at the same restaurant with a view of the basilica.