I went to Venice on the 22nd of November to be present for the opening of the exhibit ‘On the footsteps of Marco Polo: Italian Painters Paint Hangzhou” at the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in San Marco Square. I stayed in the city for only one night and spent a lot of time walking around the city with my wife and some other painters who had come for the occasion.
But I took advantage of the early morning to see the city like very few get to see it. At 6.30 am, the streets were practically deserted while the street lamps illuminated the twisted streets and gave the canals an eerie colour. As I strolled the streets, the light of the sky became more visible and I noticed how quickly the atmosphere changed with the presence of other persons.
When I got back to Rome, I started some watercolours from the pictures that I took. I think that I would like to try some oil painting ‘en plein air’ in order to understand better how the dawn light transfers atmosphere to the surrounding landscape.
