BRUSHED BY TUSCANY: AN ARTIST’S DIARY COLUMN

In Love, Art, or Bureaucracy — Do you Need To Get it Right The First Time?

Learning “alla prima”, a technique and a modus vivendi

Now: January 20th, 2024 , 2:20pm — Art With Love Foundation, Florence

Easels side by side, my partner and I are trying new media for the very first time — he is struggling with acrylic paints, and I, with oils. He has his tablet open, and a YouTube tutorial blares out asking him to get cadmium red, naples yellow hue, quinacridone red, and dioxazine purple on his palette.

I laugh as he scurries to mute the artist.

I’m pulling up a reference for Venice, the island city where I fell in love for the first time.

Alla prima comes to mind. Doing it all in one go.

One color. One layer. One hour.

One city, and one love.

Then: May 20th, 2021, 5:45pm — The Italian Consulate in Dubai

After months of waiting, here it finally was — my very first long-term Schengen visa. My family excitedly jump around me, celebrating.

I’m finally getting my dream, to move away from my home town and start a new life somewhere beautiful. Clean slate. No baggage.

Only, it’s the second attempt.

I frown at my sleep-deprived, spontaneously captured passport picture. They’d promised they’d use the one I brought in the second time.

Maybe first time’s everything.

It took nearly eight months before I got my first visa to move to Florence, Italy. And the first time, my application was rejected. On the other hand, my university classmate — who’d moved from the same place as I — got hers in a week.

Bitter is simply not the word. I was livid.

Why couldn’t I have gotten it the first time? Like her, or the others who got there no later than the end of March?

It wasn’t the only thing I didn’t get the first time. It took two years of waiting for my residence permit — and I still haven’t gotten that one. I have a different one from a city over.

Well, I guess with Italy, the second time’s the charm.

But not with the technique of “alla prima”, a way of painting layers of oil over still-wet layers of oil paint. Almost as though you’re finishing your entire painting in one go.

The first time.

Or ‘at the first’, a direct transliteration of the phrase.

At the Uffizi in Florence, one of the most prominent Italian art museums — and the most visited — there are paintings by masters of the alla prima.

While Manet, Monet, and Van Gogh abroad really made alla prima their own, Titian and Tintoretto in Venice were some of the local artists who were shaping the Venetian art scene in the High Renaissance period with the ‘alla prima’.

Tiziano Vecellio, or simply Titian in English, has a room of his own in the Uffizi. Adorning red, green, and now cream walls, Titian’s pivotal piece is his Venus of Urbino painting.

Languidly, with a rising sun out her window lies Titian’s Venus, a bride and seductress.

Oddly enough the man who commissioned her in the likeness of his juvenile bride was the son of Eleonora Gonzaga, whose matronly portrait also lives in this very room. Right next to her.

Out of Gonzaga’s window, you see a beautiful warm summer day.

There is not much alike between the two except a dog who sleeps by the side of both women, a semiotic play at fidelity in matrimony.

Well, I guess with Italy, the second time’s the charm.

The second time’s the charm for these paintings, too; the second duchess, Venus of Urbino found greater fame than the first.

And in the case of the commissioner, Guidobaldo II, the second wife, Vittoria, ended up being the charm. She bore him his heir — and eight more. No such painting was commissioned for her. A thankless motherhood.

In any case, Titian used alla prima on all his women.

One layer. One window.

And for the women of Urbino, one dog.

I had a rich dating life when I first moved to Italy. I met a Silvia for lunch, a Giovanni for dinner. An Inzia for bubble tea, and a Giulio for a sunset swim al mare.

But while Italy might have been my home, an Irishman with kind eyes and a charming smile would have my heart.

And it was on our second date that he took me to Titian’s birthplace, Venice.

Under a full moon in Scorpio we rode our gondola, lost in each other’s eyes.

He had missed his graduation, so I decided to introduce him to his first corona di alloro, or a laurel wreath.

A laurel wreath is part of the Italian tradition of crowning those who have gained merit or success in education.

Once upon a time, a laurel graced the head of Apollo to symbolize his wisdom and love for Daphne, the woman who turned into a laurel tree to escape him. Today, we wear the laurel when we graduate in Italy because it guarantees free drinks everywhere.

“Dottore, dottore, dottore del buco del cul; vaffancul, vaffancul!” Butt-hole doctor, f*ck off! Rang out everywhere, between San Marco and the docks, between the sun and the sea.

Although a rather foul-mouthed song, it’s always followed or preceded by blessings and congratulations for securing a degree. If you happen to be an anal doctor, the song isn’t so bad.

But my guy has a degree in physics. So as we were dancing through the streets from live orchestra scenes right into the odd accordion player on the road, we met countless people with interesting trysts with physics.

“Dottore, dottore, dottore del buco del cul; vaffancul, vaffancul!” Butt-hole doctor, f*ck off!

In the center of Venice, one woman’s uncle was an applied physics major working in aerospace for NASA, and although she’s Italian, she lived most of her life abroad. The uncle has published a school book I can’t remember the name of.

In Murano we met a beautiful older woman who was smiling at us the moment we docked. Like we were lifelong friends.

She held my date’s hand and told him about her husband, who was also a physicist. Looking over at me, she gave me a knowing smile, exclaiming about what a beautiful couple we make.

We glanced at each other, our hearts and gazes warm. She knew before either one of us ever did.

Second time’s the charm.

Then: 19 May, 2022, 11:20am— Florence Airport

I’m standing in the big bus to the plane. Fiachra, the Irish guy I’ve been seeing, texts me about the corona I got him over the weekend.

“My corona is starting to struggle. It’s acting like I’m not the patron saint of gardeners,” he texts.

I’m laughing.

We’d looked up his name earlier and it’s who Fiachra was — the patron saint of gardeners.

I hesitate. It’s only been two dates. Two magical dates, but just two. Is twice enough?

“This is very weird — because I haven’t even left yet — but I’m already starting to miss you.”

I press send.

As I’m boarding the plane, I wonder if I got too vulnerable too quickly. Everybody else talks about the rules of engagement. And from the start, I’ve broken them all.

I buckle up, and my phone buzzes.

“That message actually put such a smile on my face!

I started missing you the second you got out of the car on Monday.”

I look out the window, my smile betraying the tear floating in my eye.

We glanced at each other, our hearts and gazes warm. She knew before either one of us ever did.

When we moved to our first apartment together, it wasn’t the most ideal place.

The paperwork was a hassle, I couldn’t get documents made on it, and living up five flights of stairs meant going out was a very conscious decision.

But we were in love, so the problems didn’t seem quite so big.

That’s when my partner set up my very first painting nook for me. With a view of the Duomo from the window. I was overjoyed, but barely painted. There was always something more important to do.

He had sent me some money to get some plants to decorate when I’d stepped out for the first time, since I was lamenting the look of the house while he was at work.

But with the second home we moved into, he really went to town. Carried the desk up, set up my paints and easels.

One of the plants I got us was a Pothos. And as our love grew, so did the plant. Even in darkness, through a tough house move, through neglect and through care.

Now: January 20, 2024 , 3:45pm — Art With Love Foundation, Florence

I’m cringing now and my canvas. I’ve managed somehow to paint my quick little scene of Venice, of us floating by the city’s grand cathedrals on our little gondola. But because I have no idea what I’m doing, my painting is, of course, just impressionist. My colors bleed into each other and I notice every flaw.

On the other side, my partner exclaims.

“It’s so beautiful! I love it,” he puts his arm around me, “I’m so proud of you.”

I remember back in 2020, my former partner had texted me about my art page. Something I’d started after my first big-girl job fell apart.

“Hey, I came across your art page on Instagram and I had to say it’s amazing. All the hard work you’ve obviously put into it really shows. I wish you all the best with it!”

What a surreal thing to read from someone I hadn’t heard from in almost three years. Better yet, what a surreal thing to hear from someone who’d never been proud of me. I didn’t fully believe him.

When I graduated upper-second and he did with a first class, he simply said, “Yeah, but y’know, we’re just different. In my field being smart is important.”

Now that I’m older, I can see we were just never the right fit. I didn’t get it right the first time.

Now I’m with the antithesis of my ex — and him? Him I believe. Because he was always proud of me. Every Medium article. Every painting. Every job, every hobby.

When I randomly decided I wanted to make bracelets with little spell-jars, he became my first hand model. When I said I wanted to paint, he built me a desk and a nook. When I said I wanted to host my very first art meet-up? He came all the way to Florence from Pistoia — the place he moved to because I’d gotten a job here. All so I wouldn’t be anxious going in.

So, as I’m typing this at that second workstation in my second Italian apartment, with the love of my life playing piano music as he cleans… All I’m trying to say is that alla prima might be a magical, wonderful idea.

But it’s not the only way to paint. Or to live.

Wet-on-wet is good, but at the first go is not the only way to go.

I’ll catch you next week Wednesday for the next installment from Tuscany!

Check out last week’s topic here:

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