Arezzo building closeups

By request, here are some closeup shots of Arezzo's beautiful buildings. The designs and colors are still current, wouldn't you say?

Sorry that the shots are not in the best focus, but they'll certainly give you a good idea.

Left side:

Right side:

More...

For additional photos of excellent quality, see the book The Painted Facades of Florence, written by Eleonora Pecchioli and photographed by Antonio Quattrone. It is full of stunning photographs of Florence's exquisite sgraffito facades. As the book's introduction says: "This phenomenon, particularly in the case of sgraffiti, derived from the late fifteenth century discovery of frescoed underground rooms ('grottoes') in Rome, which were decorated with stuccowork motifs of flora, fauna and monstrous figures mostly dating from the Imperial Age; those found in the Domus Aurea, the splendid palace built for the Emperor Nero in the heart of Rome, attracted particular interest. Fascinated by this innovative vision of polychrome antiquity and by the imagination that it revealed, late fifteenth century artists were quick to imitate it, referring to their own decorative work influenced by those models, as 'grotesques'." (ie: grottesca) I will be posting on this favorite type of art in my upcoming post on our visit to Rome.


Here are a few peeks at the book's photos.

Theresa Cheeks, over at the Art's the Answer blog, just posted about her grottesca class with Carolina D'Ayala Valva, of the Artelier Studio in Rome. The class was held at the San Antonio studio of Leslie and Nicola Vigini. Both Carolina and Nicola are the best of the world class grottesca artists. (Can you tell how much I love it?)

You Can Find Color Here (as in Peacock)

Do you dream in color like I do? One of my inspirations just happens to contain some of my fav colors in the fabulous, showy package known as the peacock. The brilliant blues, shades of green, accents of yellow, brown and black…

And (how timely) Pantone selected Turquoise as their color for 2010.

Full peacock feathers

Did you know that the luminous, brilliant colors of the peacock feather do not come entirely from the chemical pigments, but rather from the structure of the feather itself? The straplike "twigs" which come off the branches of the peacock feather measure differently for each color region. These produce the peacock's iridescent hues, which shimmer and change, depending on the angle of light. The magnified feathers look like this:

Peacock feathers x 50 closeup

Peacock feathers x100 closeup

Lately, I’ve seen the peacock feathers featured as a décor item. Perfect accents, wouldn’t you say?

Voyage Arabescue silk fabric

Rouge Living peacock pillow

The Rug Company

 

Halycon carpet, Loomah's Roscoe Collection

Mosaic of peacock feathers

You can find the peacock colors everywhere!

Grottesca by Carolina D'Ayala Valva

Carolina D'Ayala Valva's Grottesca with closeup of peacock feather

Great blue and green! Source unknown