Original artwork description:

Textural impressionist impasto palette knife oil painting on stretched canvas, 60x50 cm. The original painting was a commissioned work I painted for an art collector from Canada.

Inspired by my travels to Rome, Italy, this painting presents a colorful night scene of Piazza di Spagna ( Spain Square ) by moonlight. I am in love with Rome and every time I got the chance to wander in this splendid city I got inspired. During late April and early May especially I enjoyed to see the the spring flowers on the Spanish Steps. In this painting it is all about those timeless, suspended hours when the moon is still on sky ...


The Spanish Steps (Italian: Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti) are a set of steps in Rome, Italy, climbing a steep slope between the Piazza di Spagna at the base and Piazza Trinità dei Monti, dominated by the Trinità dei Monti church at the top. The monumental stairway was released in order to connect the Bourbon Spanish embassy (from which the square takes its name) to the Church of Trinità dei Monti.

Piazza di Spagna, at the bottom of the Spanish Steps, is one of the most famous squares in Rome (Italy). It owes its name to the Palazzo di Spagna, seat of the Embassy of Spain among the Holy See. Nearby is the famed Column of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

In the foreground I painted Fontana della Barcaccia, dating to the beginning of the baroque period, sculpted by Pietro Bernini and his son, the more famous Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The Fontana della Barcaccia ( Fountain of the Boat ) , the sculptural fountain is made into the shape of a half-sunken ship with water overflowing its sides into a small basin. The source of the water comes from the Acqua Vergine, an aqueduct from 19 BCE. Bernini built this fountain to be slightly below street level due to the low water pressure from the aqueduct. Water flows from seven points of fountain: the center baluster; two inside the boat from sun-shaped human faces; and four outside the boat.

According to legend, as the River Tiber flooded in 1598, water carried a small boat into the Piazza di Spagna. When the water receded, a boat was deposited in the center of the square, and it was this event that inspired Bernini's creation. The fountain is decorated with the papal coat of arms of the Barberini family as a reminder of Pope Urban VIII's ancestry.

Materials used:

oil paints, canvas, palette knives

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