David Gentleman’s Italy, published by Hodder and Stoughton in 1997 continued the wonderful series of art based travelogues by the author through the 1980s and 90s. Having previously covered Britain, London, Paris and India, Gentleman turned his brush to Italy.
Gentleman had been a frequent visitor to Italy since he was a young man and for an artist, Italy has an inexhaustible list of incredible places to paint and Gentleman’s love for its culture and history is clear. From Venice to Milan, Florence to Umbria and Rome and Naples to Sicily this book is packed with beautiful paintings and sketches alongside invaluable notes by the author who never fails to provide an honest critique of the places he visits.
The book contains all of the classic picture postcard scenes one would expect but alongside those dozens of supplementary sketches and paintings of side streets, cafés, piazzas and people going about their everyday lives. He offers useful tips for the tourist to maximise their visit and in his introduction he gives the reader the good and the bad and when he points out the bad it is balanced and forgiving.
In Naples he does his best to be forgiving but it comes with a warning; to stray off the beaten path would be very foolish indeed, he recalls several men surrounding him at the train station looking for his wallet and advises the reader to stick to the main streets and be on one’s guard at all times.
Thankfully he omits the horrendous, nonsensical graffiti which plagues many of the walls of houses and old buildings in Italy today. On a recent trip to Florence and Tuscany I found it near impossible to photograph anything of interest without the stain of a spray-painted squiggle. In many ways it felt like a fight between old and new and the changing face of its inhabitants who clearly care less for history and tradition than their predecessors. Gentleman alludes to this and the ugliness which comes with a country struggling to find its place in a new world order and for that they are not alone.
Whilst this was written almost thirty years ago it still stands as a useful guide to exploring the country, his illustrations wet the appetite for visiting Italy in ways I do not feel photographs can. There is a wonderful timeless quality to his art and this book is testament to that.
See also:
Categories: David Gentleman, The Reading Room
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