The city is once again the setting for a group of artists from abroad (this time for the USA) who are busily attempting to get down in oils, pastels and drawings an “essence of Barga”.
All this week Brian Keeler and his students can be found in the main room of Casa Cordati painting the spring light streaming in from the large windows and lighting a nude figure and then in the afternoons moving outside to capture the fleeting sunlight and shadows of Barga Vecchia and the Fornacetta.
“Everybody should take active part in the battle of art, because the artist’s life is connected to the life of all his contemporaries, and because art leaves eternal traces of the life of peoples.” – Bruno Cordati
Brian Keeler was born in 1953 and he lives in his hometown of Wyalusing, Pa. USA. He primarily devotes his time to painting landscapes, still lives, figures, and portraits in oil, pastel and water-colour.
Brian has made the landscape and cities of Italy one of his painting projects over the decade and he conducted landscape and life drawing classes here in Barga since the spring of 2004 , 2006, 2007 and up until 2013
His oil paintings are often begun with quick pencil sketches or studies done in pastel or with oil, usually in a smaller scale on location. Keeler then goes back to his studio and creates larger format oils based on these first-hand compositions and from photos.
He feels that there is something irreplaceable about being outside and experiencing nature first-hand while creating paintings in a single sitting. Feeling the air, hearing the ambient sounds of nature and even the background sounds of traffic, lawnmowers and people, seeing the effects of light and serendipitous occurrences of nature all contribute to an emotional connection to his subjects.
One of the artist’s main attractions to any given landscape is the quality of light and the play of light on fields, clouds and topography. His site containing other examples of his work can be seen here.
