Some artists spend their lives clawing towards the big city. Giancarlo Vitali did the opposite. Born in Bellano in 1929 into a family of fishermen, he painted this village and its people for nearly ninety years, and mostly just… stayed. Then in 2017, when he was 88, Milan finally came to him: a huge retrospective at the Palazzo Reale with a couple of hundred works, curated by his son Velasco. The fisherman’s son filled a royal palace.
My day here had two jobs on the list. The first was the Orrido di Bellano, the gorge that splits the village: a roaring slot of water and black rock with walkways bolted along the inside, and the best movement study a person can buy for a few euro. I went early before the crowds and stood over that white water thinking about how you turn something that never stops moving into a line that does. That question is basically my whole trip.
The second job was the San Nicolao contemporary art space, an old deconsecrated church the village has given over to art. And that is Bellano all over: standing in this village you can see why Vitali never needed to leave. Art here is street furniture. You turn a corner and there is a piece set right into the stone wall, no ropes, no glass, no gift shop. Just art, weathering along with everyone else.
I also spent a while with my nose against a display case of old sketchbooks, pages of wartime ink and wash drawings sitting next to little blue books. Other people’s sketchbooks are the most honest museums in the world. No frames, no titles, just somebody thinking on paper eighty years ago.
All of which shamed me into doing my own homework. Five pages by dinner time. Figures, mostly… people on the lungolago, a reclining pose I fought with until it surrendered. Here are two I do not hate:
Vitali worked from what was in front of him, his whole life, and it was enough to fill a palace. That is the lesson I am taking back to the studio: you do not need more subjects, you need to look harder at the ones you have.
Tomorrow the ferry, and the famous end of the lake.
Sunday was meant to be a rest day. Instead: a red train over the Alps, a walk through a century of melting ice, and two donkeys with the best address in Switzerland.
A sketching day in Varenna on Lake Como. Train up, walking trail through the olive trees to Castello di Vezio, eagle owls at close range, then gesture studies on the ferry pier as the lake week wraps up.
A business day in Como and Cantù, where silk built a city and lace built its neighbour. Talks with a silk printing house about printing ink work on fabric, plus 62 reference photos for the studio year ahead.
