Tag: park

Temple of Diana in the Pincio Park, Rome

The Pincio Park, or the gardens of the Villa Borghese, are the Rome equivalent of New York’s Central Park. We’d often sit in our favorite café in the park to write Rome Secrets or CityTravelBlog. This is the Temple of Diana in the park in the sun, with several picnickers on the lawn in the foreground in dappled shade.

I was interested in capturing the subject in bright light in the background, as it so often is in 18th and 19th century landscapes. The middle ground is alternately sunny and shaded, and the silhouetted tree in the foreground gives the composition depth and drama in a somewhat Japanese way. I often like a tree in the foreground as a way of dividing the canvas and giving drama to an otherwise calm landscape.

Oil on canvas

36”w x 24”h

$950.

Jardins de la Fontaine, Nimes, France

Nimes is a beautiful city in southern France. It has two world famous sites; the Vieux Carré, which is the most perfectly preserved Roman temple in the world, and the Arena, which is a Roman coliseum. We were wandering around the city, catching its other sites, and climbed through a park called the Jardins de la Fontaine. About halfway up to hill, I saw this scene, which seemed so quintessentially French, that I had to paint it.

My aim was to capture the long shadows creating violet stripes across the path and the Frenchness of the pink stucco house

Oil on canvas
28”w x 22”h

$850.