The Palazzina Liberty has -- at least during all of the months of the summer season -- ongoing art exhibitions. You'll see the posters pasted and pinned around Stresa, on windows, bars, and in the supermarket; but have you ever stopped in to this small, slightly out-of-the-way gallery? You should; there's always something interesting to see. For example, now, until 26 August, the gallery is featuring a show of works by local painter Giacomo Schiari.

For la festa di San Valentino this year, I would like to share with you the beautiful Story of Psyche series of paintings by the French painter Maurice Denis.  You'll see why in just a minute. The paintings were commissioned by a wealthy Russian industrialist and art patron, Ivan Moronov, and painted by Denis during 1908 and 1909. When completed, Denis personally brought the paintings to Moronov's Moscow home.

Denis had visited Italy in the 1890s, and the travels greatly influenced him and his art. When Moronov commissioned Denis for the paintings, it was Denis who suggested the story of Psyche and Cupid, because of its "idyllic and mysterious character," he said.

In five of the paintings, Denis used Isola Bella as the setting of the story. And that's why I want to share them with you this Valentine's Day. Here are the paintings, with their titles, and their very familiar Stresa locations:

 Cupid is Struck by the Beauty of Psyche. I do believe that is the view of Lago Maggiore from Isola Bella, with the town and mountain of Laveno seen in the back right, and Pallanza Verbania in the back left.

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I was reminded, by the recent post about walking at the Riserva Naturale at Fondatoce, and the poem I mentioned having seen, about yet another poem I saw, this one while walking along the Lungolago. I had noticed this large rock, found pretty much in the area in the photo above, with two small plaques; here are photos of them:

The horizontal plaque on the upper right indicates it is a gift in memory of poet and scholar Clemente M. Rebora. It shows the years of his life as from 1885 to 1957. 

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Although the painting (called L'ultima cena, or, Il Cenacolo in Italian) itself is instantly recognizable, many people may not know that its location is quite simple, small, and unassuming. Santa Maria delle Grazie is a church and Dominican convent in central Milan, commissioned in the late 1400s by the dukes of the Sforza family. The Last Supper, which Da Vinci painted for them and finished in 1498, covers the back wall of the convent’s dining hall.

The judges have made their decision, and the winners have been chosen in the "Stresa and her Lake: Flowering Atmosphere" photo contest. Stresa e il suo lago: atmosfere fiorite, as it is in Italian, was organized by the Turistica Pro Loco di Stresa, in collaboration with the Assessorato al Turismo della Citta' di Stresa, two groups that promote tourism and the city. The goal of the contest was to increase the appreciation of Stresa as a floral community, and to produce more images of the city shown in this way. And no small coincidence that this has happened at the same time as the visit to Stresa by the judges for this year's Entente Florale Competition, when Stresa will be judged against other European cities for the title of most floral city in Europe!

From now until June 20, 2010, all of the photographs entered will be on display at Spazio Luparia on via A.M. Bolongaro. 

Other flowery news:

Fior di Gusto -- A Gastronomic Event
Stresa -- Community Of Flowers
La 43rd Annuale Mostra Nazionale della Camelia

Have you taken a special photo of Stresa with flowers as the theme?

This statue is found near Cafe Verbanella, behind the restaurant, and as you can see, close to the water's edge...

I noticed the first of the new Carrara marble statues almost immediately upon my arrival in Stresa, and it was explained to me that it was one of a set of three. At the first opportunity I went walking with my camera to find the other two. Interesting artworks...

Back in May 2007, three blocks of marble of equal size were given to three internationally known sculptors. Housed outside the Villa La Palazzola on the lungolago, the three artists worked, side by side, between May 12 and May 27, 2007, using the technique called a togliere -- to remove -- the technique typical of stone sculptors.

This unique exhibition not only gave the artists the opportunity to collaborate and exchange ideas with each other; it also gave tourists and passersby the chance to watch, step by step, as the works were revealed.



The three artists are:


Hattori Koh-Emon was born in Japan in 1947 and studied art at Brera. He works with various materials and his works can be seen in many places throughout Italy, Europe, and Japan.

The presepi season is in full swing in Stresa. A new additions to the presepi celebration is the more than two dozen large panels that were recently painted by graffiti artists . All were painted in a short time frame as most graffiti is, but these were also painted with onlookers, as most graffiti certainly is not. And this is no ordinary graffiti. These are beautiful works of art, which are now positioned strategically in interesting places on Isola Bella and Isola Pescatore. Each piece is numbered, and viewers have the ability to vote for a favorite. The hope is that this will be the first of such events. It certainly adds yet another element to the holiday fun here in Stresa.

Let's take a walk around the island together now and look at some of these panels..

In this aerial view you can see the proximity of Villa Ponti to both the lake and the statue 'Carlone'.

Villa Ponti is a splendid 18th-century villa of historical importance, located in the center of Arona, near the shore of Lago Maggiore and just a few steps from the large statue of San Carlo Borromeo. For the past 10 years it has also been a world-class art museum, hosting exhibitions displaying masterpieces by many of the greatest painters in the world. To date over 300,000 have already had the pleasure of visiting. But before its second life as a museum, Villa Ponti already had an impressive story to tell. This fine villa was built in 1760 on the ramparts of the fortress La Rocca by Bartolomeo Pertossi, a rich Flemish merchant and a supporter of Napoleon I, who was a guest there after the Egyptian campaign. Years later, the villa was renamed after the engineer Gian Giacomo Ponti, who was an assistant to Thomas Edison and who was born in this house on December 28th, 1878.

Although there were many renovations and alterations during the 19th century, the villa still retains a good part of its original core. Today, visitors enter through the baroque front, which is characterized by a monumental entrance flanked by small wrought iron balconies and windows embellished by metal gratings. The lookout tower, which was really built to hold the water tanks, is prominently visible. Inside the villa one is first greeted by a coffee bar, created out of a former arcade. The various halls now used for the exhibitions and concerts branch off from this main entrance. Some recent shows have featured the works of Raphael and Rembrandt, Picasso, Andy Warhol, and Renoir.

Outside, the building is surrounded by a large park with ancient beeches, silver cedars, magnolias, azaleas, and rhododendrons. The gardens date back as far as the villa itself, and last underwent a major redesign at the beginning of the 1900s.

Museo dell'Ombrello e del Parasole
Museo del Paesaggio - Museum of the Landscape
The Egyptian Museum - Torino

It was exactly one year ago today that I attended a Queen concert at the Assago Forum in Milano. To be perfectly honest, I hardly ever go to concerts, but how can one pass up the fun opportunity to experience a concert in another country? And I thought it would give me a chance to perhaps discover the answer to something that I'd always been curious about, namely, how audiences in non-English-speaking countries participate in a musical experience in the same way that I do, when they don't understand the words of the songs they are listening to. Cheering, clapping, the arms waving, whistling, that was all the same. But still, did the crowd know what they were cheering at? Was it just music, without any meaning behind it?

Touring with Queen to sing the parts that Freddy Mercury had sung was Paul Rogers. Somewhere in the middle of the concert he took a barstool, his guitar, and a microphone to the end of the runway, and with a lone spotlight pointed on him he recreated Freddy Mercury singing "Love of My Life." Here's a video taken from near my seat. Listen to these 11,000 people, let's assume mostly Italian, sing Love of My Life. For the first moments I forgot I was in Italy, as they sang loud and clear in English. After all, it sounded normal to me. Then the reality clicked about where I was, and it made the moment much more magical. It was one of those perfect moments, that come rarely in life, where all is aligned in the universe, and we were all speaking one common language, no translation necessary, No doubt, no doubt in my mind at all, that they totally knew what they were singing, that they totally got it. Listen for yourself...

See what's coming up at the Assago Forum (now called the Mediolanum Forum). Maybe there's a great concert when you'll be here. If you don't have a car you can still reach there by taking a train into Milan. Shuttles run from the MM2 Famagosta directly to the forum.