In which Tuscany makes a strong argument for the existence of Eden

It's been raining on and off since yesterday afternoon. Here that means the skies go all painterly.

Joe said recently that I seemed to be living in an artist's utopia, and I think that's pretty much right. The walls echo with music. If you want to try something--whether it's a scene or a new song--you can find someone talented to help you out. The very colors and flavors and language of Italy seem purposely designed to stimulate the creative impulse.

I went to a little art supply store this afternoon for a sketch pad, and of course I wound up buying some watercolor pencils. It's just a little different, buying art supplies here. The paint labeled siena (one n in Italian) means something more when you're only an hour or two away from Siena and the colors of Italian earth surround you in the streets and the walls of the city.

As I was paying I noticed the jars of powdered pigments on the shelves behind the counter. If color has a Platonic ideal, it is there, in that brilliance. I mentioned the pigments and the owner got very excited. They were for frescoes, he explained. He still mixed them in the traditional way. They did not always perfectly match the ancient colors, but they were as close as anyone can get today. And then he took me through the store and showed me all the different ways one can use classical pigments, how you can actually feel the difference in weight between a tube of oil paint made with synthetic pigments and a tube of the same size made with the old minerals, and so on. And my God, a little bottle of pure cobalt, bluer than any blue you've ever seen, seeming to emanate light--!

I left feeling a direct kinship to the Renaissance, in an entirely new way, as if all those artists were still around me, breathing the rainy air, asking their immortal questions.

On my way back home I stopped at the city's medieval wall and decided to climb up to take a look. A fellow student commented this afternoon that you can't turn around here without discovering another beautiful view, and yeah, he's right:



There's plenty I need to write about the week's classes, about a fantastic seminar on clown and clowns, about everything we're doing and learning, but in due time. Sometimes you just need to let yourself be knocked down by beauty.