Roma, Accademia de Belli Arti

Pen and Ink Drawing of a fellow student. 1961.

Arrivals in strange and foreign cities are often both exciting and traumatic; particularly if you are without language and have limited financial resources. Naples with it's swarming mass of  under employed  guides and porters seeming intent on fleecing any unsuspecting souls, you have to experience that sense helplessness to fully appreciate trauma. Fortunately, I had befriended a returning Italian migrant on board ship who was returning to Rome, much disillusioned with the good life Australia had promised and with his help, I eventually arrived in Rome by train. He helped me find  temporary accommodation the night. in a boarding house, the Signora who ran the establishment being reluctant to turn away any likely new source of income.


After a week with my friend's help I  installed myself in a room over looking Piazza Cavour, while waiting to enrol at the Academia De Belli Arti just down the road. It soon became obvious that I was somehow going to have to find more suitable quarters ,were I could paint without upsetting the owners by using their rooms as a studio. A fellow Australian student in my class knew an American artist about to vacate his room in the old red quarter of Rome, as he was going to ear french fries in Paris. The student had been living in Rome for a number of years, so she was quite fluent in Italian and was able to secure the room for me. The elderly pensioner whose owned the apartment was easy to get on with and need a small extra income. My room overlooked the convent garden of St. Callisto ,so I was woken early each morning by the convent bell calling the nuns to prey. It was a very peace full scene,  I  often sat and contemplated  the mood which was in complete contrast to the noise, bustle and confusion in the street outside. I was to live here for a year and greatly enjoyed the odd pasta dish my host cooked for me, Often he would take at least two days just preparing the sauce as the pig  fat base had to be rendered down to next to nothing before starting.

Pen and ink drawing of my first apartment building. 1961

The academy was very different to what I had experienced in Sydney, the duration of the drawing class only lasted three hours each morning. Your professor would arrive about ten minutes before noon, walk around the class shouting bravo, bravo, before disappearing for a long lunch. Food is very important in Italy as in most Mediterranean countries and generally runs to several hours so we only saw him once a day. The instruction such as it was, was carried out by his assistant, we spent each and ever day drawing  from life a rather large and rotund Sicilian girl, her awesome bulk had to be seen to be believed everyone assumed she must have been a relative of our instructor as it would be hard to imagine why he continue to employ her foe the best part of six months. Our model was so large and fat that knowing were the various parts of her anatomy started and finished became highly problematical. Henry Gibbons instance at Julian Ashton that you must search for the bone structure and muscles tone was next to impossible. Luckily her younger sister replaced her as our model half way through the year with the added bonus that she was very attractive.

Pen and ink drawing life class, 1961.

Unlike Australian art school each department had various teachers who specialised in different approaches, so a student could work with someone who taught in the academic tradition of the 19th cent, or you could pursue an impressionist's pallet or abstract expressionism. Therefor the class you attended became very important, I joined the modernist group as did most of the students, when you are young only the latest style will do. The class was packed with every nationality on earth so we experience a truly international vision of humankind. Printmaking, sculpture, theatre design and history were also taught. The theatre group were very lucky as apart from studying costume design over the centuries, they would go out to Rome's film studio for lectures from the great Italian directors such as Fellini and Antonioni. In addition we were required to copy the old masters in black and white in order to develop our composition and tonal layout. This was compulsory no matter who you studied under. I have heard of classic black and white films being used to the same end were the film would be stopped ,while the students would examine the compositional frame work of the director. Really do an audience appreciate the thought that goes into the making great art films.


Three times a week we were treated to a lecture in art history and aesthetics by Professor Rivesici a close friend of the great Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce. Croce has published many books on aesthetics as well as other subjects, central to his thinking is the concept of art as a pure form of knowledge. His lectures were always well attended even though they dealt with the analysis of Caravaggio and Berni for the best part of two years. Even with my limited Italian  ,I enjoyed his lectures  as  my knowledge of the Italian Baroque was very limited.