Settling In: An Art Show

On Monday my host mom asked me if I would be interested in going with them to an art show of their daughter’s. “Si, si, certo!” I grabbed my favorite winter coat, which happens to go nicely with the new scarf that I love, and headed for the door. Of course, by winter coat, I mean San Diego winter, which means that the cream-colored knit sweater is perfect for a fall evening in Tuscany. We left just after five, leaving ourselves enough time to pick up my host mom’s elderly mother and drive out into the hills around Florence to the Medici’s Villa where the art show starts at six. My host mom eagerly points out all sorts of landmarks during our drive – a museum, the building where she works, and as we drive further through the suburbs, the various villas where other colleges have programs. She explains that her friend works at one of them, and I only sort of understand her Italian explanation of what exactly it is that her friend does for the college.

It is interesting to see more of the city. My host family lives very close to the center, and I’ve walked through the narrow cobblestone streets around the city center enough times to be confident that I can always find my way around well enough to get back to my house or the Stanford Center (granted, I still keep a map in my purse whenever I go out). However past that simple walking distance, which currently has a radius of a few miles, I haven’t seen anything of the city. So I keep my eyes on the buildings and, as we get farther outside the city, the beautiful green hills and villas that are rapidly passing by my window. Angelica (my host mom) points out the famous beauty of Fiesole, a hill outside the city dotted with picturesque villas and capped with some sort of religious building, I think she said a Franciscan monastery, which I will definitely visit one of these days. And the seemingly never-ending property of a gigantic villa with a foreign sounding name, which my host grandmother (I suppose that’s what I would call her) tells both Angelica and me is Russian. Angelica mentions that in the extensive grounds of this villa there is a famous statue which I can’t remember the name of, but she says something about it being the biggest statue in all of Tuscany, and I promise her I’ll go see it one of these days and walk around, since she assures me it is beautiful and a great place for a picnic.

We arrive at the Medici Villa just before six, and park on the grass under a pine tree. Hurriedly I pull the coat out of my large purse, as it is much colder up here in the hills than it was in the city. Bundled up, we make our way towards the villa, very slowly so that the tiny and delicate Italian grandmother can keep up with us across the uneven cobblestones. We mingle with the others in the courtyard for a moment before Angelica curiously pokes her nose through a door, looking for her daughter. She finds her, but is quickly shooed away since the show isn’t to be seen yet. As we walk towards the main entrance of the Villa, I learn that where we were, and where the paintings are all hanging, is actually just the old stables of the villa. The main building seems formidable, going up, straight up, before me for several stories. It’s immense, with the proud and almost haughty reserve of a building that has been important in the past. Although no longer endowed with the same importance in the daily activity that has long ceased to bustle around its grounds, it rests on the laurels of its history, and still manages to hold its own.

There is not actually much of the villa to see, as the grounds past the front yard (if I can use such an ordinary phrase for it) are fenced off, and the rooms past the front entrance are currently closed off to the crowds milling in that gigantic stone hall. There are a few pieces of modern art hung on the walls, which might seem like an anachronism there, but somehow their dark gray forms with interesting but somewhat stark lines do not clash with the mood of the building. The show is running late, and there is not that much to do besides try to fit in and socialize with this Italian family that I am part of. When they let us into the rooms of the villa set up for the reception, I look around at the painted ceilings depicting famous peoples and the coat of arms for all the towns in Tuscany. Being in a villa like this is interesting, but it’s not actually set up to be a historical landmark, and besides the ceilings there is not much to see.

We wait an hour through the long and late speeches of introduction and thanks to the benefactors of the show. I meet the 25 year old artist whose room I am now living in, very beautiful in a gauzy lavender dress. Also Angelica’s ex-husband, who I know right off since he looks so much like the 17 year old son who I’ve eaten several dinners with. The family is still very much a unit, although ex-husband and wife don’t say very much to each other, and the wife’s boyfriend is incredibly quiet. But Angelica still asks where her ex-mother-in-law is and chats with her, and smiles to see her son and daughter talking with their father. It’s interesting to see how the relatively new phenomenon of divorce here in Italy is encountering the long tradition of the importance of the family.

When the talking is done they finally serve the champagne and appetizers that I’ve been eyeing – I ate lunch a long time ago and I’m starving. However, not only do I manage to make my way through the thick crowds to grab a drink and small crostini and sit down right next to another table loaded with slices of cheese and Italian sausage, but Angelica and her friends all make it their mission to go and get samples of all the food for everyone else, which they all of course refuse from each other, leaving me and the 17-year-old, Cico they call him (short for Francisco I think), to share the bounty from all these kind women.

My stomach no longer rumbling at me, we make our way back over to the stables for the show. The daughter is working the reception desk as we come in, and although I don’t actually hear it, I can tell Angelica asked her daughter where her paintings were so she could go straight to them and admire them, and the daughter retorted that she should go look through the art and find them. Her bit of impatience is understandable, since Angelica has come in support of the show several times already and knows exactly what they look like. I enjoy myself looking around at all the modern art. Many of Tuscan landscapes hang on the walls, covering a range from realistic to very abstract. The rest of the art covers all sorts of subjects, and a few catch my eye. A couple of very large canvases, dark and dim, with large feminine faces almost covered over and obscured. They remind me of frescoes painted long ago and covered with the grime of the ages. The expressions demand my empathy, and seem so forlorn at being stuck there, immobile on those canvases forever. I also like a series of smaller paintings, all with gray backgrounds and warm brown hens painted with differing degrees of abstraction. I finish looking through the show I go back to ask Angelica, chatting with her ex-husband, which are her daughter’s work. They are two large works which caught my eye as I went around – images of Tuscan homes, but not idealized. They pictures back yards with cheap plastic chairs, snake-like emerald hoses, and old tables covered under an overhang outside. It is easy to tell what they depict, but the lines are abstract and stray from the laws of perspective. They are interesting. Apparently the daughter has been told that her work is the most “American” of all the paintings there. I have no clue what that means.

We don’t stay too long. As we walk back to the car, I am remembering how much I really do like art. Maybe I will sign up for that modern art in Tuscany class. I haven’t drawn or painted in many years, and I’m kind of intimidated by the class, but I know that it is full of first-time artists. And when else will I ever study painting like this, in the heart of the Renaissance and the opportunity to start from the beginning, with no expectations as to my skill level? I like creativity. I should take the class. I’ll sign up tomorrow.