Fairies in the Garden Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/linen 10 x 15" 25 x 38cm
View of Orte Blair Pessemier Acrylic/linen 11 x 16" 27 x 41 cm
The Medieval City of Orte Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/linen 12 x 24" 30 x 60"
The Monster and Me
“You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination
is out of focus.” ― Mark Twain
It’s been a wonderful and difficult week – amazing how that
can happen. Wonderful in the sense we
went to Stimigliano again and hung out by the pool, amongst the flowers. We further explored the area, visiting the
miracle shrine with holy water full of large tadpoles (I can’t recall the
saint, or holy man, but can picture giant frogs). The highlight of our explorations was
Bomarzo, the garden of monsters carved in and from local stone.
This isn’t our first monster visit (we went to Villa
Palagonia in Sicily), and monsters seem to be popular in Italy. I think it might have to do with the drama of
monsters, and what they can do with people.
At Bomarzo there is a monster ripping a man in two; Hannibal’s elephant
is killing a Roman soldier; a fantastic fish is about to swallow a turtle with
a tree on his back. There is a “crooked
house” carved in stone that makes one feel completely topsy-turvy when you walk
inside. I liked the whole experience,
wrenching me out of my usual mindset. It
is Mannerism at its best, thumbing its nose at Renaissance convention.
Although I can appreciate and in fact adore certain early Renaissance
artwork (the Laurentian library; Brunelleschi’s dome; Piero della Francesca), I
am not a fan of that period. It is too
orderly for me. The gardens are
great. I am not anti-Italian art: I like Greco-Roman art and architecture;
medieval sculpture and objects; Byzantine gold mosaics; and the Italian Futurist
movement. There is still plenty to
enjoy.
My own art has waned, as it has been 100 degrees (38
celsius) in our yard this week. My red
paint tube dried up in the back of the car.
It was the same temperature when
we outside of Rome, but drier there than in Rocca Malatina. Our house has been warm, and Harika got a new
haircut. None of us is sleeping well.
We are preparing for our trip to America this week. I am a nervous wreck, as usual, anticipating
every horrible outcome. I’ve been back
and forth a million (nearly a hundred anyway) times, but it still shakes me up. I can be my own monster.
I look for more information on monsters in Italy, and find
that along with the monsters, are fairies.
Italy was the first place to incorporate fairies in literature. I think they are living in the tall grass of
my yard.
