I recently returned from six weeks of painting in Civita Castellana, Italy with the Jerusalem Studio School summer program in Civita. This was my second time visiting this amazing town about an hour and a half north of Rome near Monte Soratte. The country side around Civita Castellana is fantastically beautiful with its gorges, tufu rock formations, forts, castles, ancient ruins, pastures and the towering Monte Soratte looming over all. The town dates back to pre-Roman Faliscan civilization and has many medieval structures and streets. Since the the 17th century Civita was an important Grand Tour destination for landscape painting north of Rome. Many important painters such as Corot, Ingres, Valenciennes, and Turner painted here.
I stayed in two locations, the first was a wonderfully large home with a delightful host, a few miles outside of town. It had amazingly luxuriant accommodations, even a large swimming pool, very rare for the area. Regretfully I decided the commute with the unreliable local mini-bus was too formidable and I eventually moved to the center of town to a 4th floor hovel with only the barest of necessities and a maddening 4 sets of keys to unlock rickety ancient doors to get through the steep stairwells. However,my new place had a magnificent patio overlooking a great view of Monte Soratte and the rooftops of the town – where I made several paintings. As I get the time I will post some photos of where I stayed and visited.
Painting everyday full time, without the interruptions and distractions of daily wired life was a godsend. Critiques and discussion from Israel Hershberg and others were extremely valuable in helping me go forward with new directions with my work. I was also videotaping footage of the JSS program that I will be editing over the next couple of months to about the area and many aspects of the program.
Here are a few samples of work from Civita this summer. Titles, size, etc are available in the Italy section of my website as well as larger views.
