Text and image Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland
From time to time I visit Frances Mayes' Journal. When I came over last night it was to be taken on a Venezian walk. Why is it that my heart beats faster, warmer, every time I am taken to La Serenissima?
As many of you know, I have quite a collection of books about or set in Venezia. Actually, when I started writing my booktalks, many years ago, even before blogging, I always included a section about Venezian books. Like here, in the 2nd Booktalk on a Sunday I wrote here on Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods back in February 2007.
With Italia and Venezia in my mind I am enjoying a gem of a book today, An Artist in Italy written and illustrated by Walter Tyndale R.I around 1920 (I am not quite sure of the year but if I remember correct, Roz, a friend and fellow Venezia lover, helped me check the date a few years ago.
I found this book by chance in an antiquarian in the Ghetto in Cannaregio in Venezia. It cost a lot more than what was on my bookbudget, but I bought it anyway and have of course never regretted the money spent.
The book, huge, blue bound, tells the story of how Walter Tyndale as a young man came to visit Italy in the first place, sent there by the mother of a friend who went to Italy and failed to write letters home. The book starts in Venezia, then continues to other parts of Italia, all the time illustrated by Tyndales watercolours.
An artist in Italy. I am no painter, nevertheless I bring my painbox with me every time I travel to Italy, yes, if you have read my blog for some years you have seen me sitting on the foundamenta, painting, or you have seen Marta working on her art. Venezia is made for artists, artists who create with brushes and colours, artist who create with words, with music, artists who create with their camera.
And it is made for artists living there, magicians with glass as their medium, with fish, fruit and vegetables, icecream, pastries or coffee as their medium, artists hanging their laundry.
It is also made for you and me, we who make living an art. Venezia is always there, waiting for me. Waiting for my long walk where I never miss even the tiniest nook and corner, it is there for me to make friends, to have coffee, to wrap myself in colours, in beauty, in history.
I know I will be back in Venezia during the year. I always will.
But when?
Photos: I started to look through old photos from Venezia, I had forgotten how many I have of hanging laundry. I could have shared hundreds......
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Links: I started to put in links, but gave up. There are so many I want tpo show you, I must have hundreds of posts from Venezia. Here is a link to them all. (If you press on this link you will be taken to all my venezia posts, starting with this on, scroll down and it will continue for a long, long time)
