April Showers

Spring blossoms are all too fleeting.  It seems they have just arrived and already this morning's rain has caused many to cascade to the ground carpeting it in white and pink.

A Fairyland of Blossoms

Baltimore is awash with blossoms.  After weeks of cold weather we suddenly experienced two days of 90 degree weather.  Bradford Pear trees planted along the streets create a drift of white that remind one of snow.  The cherry trees are at their peak and Cylburn Arboretum has a particularly lovely orchard.  Accents of golden forsythia peak from gardens and hedges.  It is a fairyland.

The Limonaia, Boboli Gardens, Florence

The Limonaia

A year ago at the end of April I returned to Florence after many years.  I spent both my junior year abroad and a graduate year in Florence, studying Italian and art history.  What a pleasure it was to spend so much time in that magical city where around every corner an architectural or sculptural treasure awaited!  I loved wandering through museums, attending concerts, walking through the streets, watching people in the piazzas, shopping in the markets, and learning to cook wonderful Tuscan meals when not studying.

But I also found special places to retreat from the city.  The cloistered garden with its towering pine tree in San Marco was one such place.  Climbing the hill toward Settignano and looking back at Florence far below was another.  The gemlike church of San Miniato al Monte with its striated black and white marble always lured me to climb high above the city.

The Boboli Gardens is another oasis.  Located behind the Pitti Palace, the gardens provide shady paths that soothe and cool after the summer heat of Florentine streets.  The paths lead down to the wonderful Piazzale dell'Isolotto where immense terracotta pots filled with lemon trees surround a pool of water at whose center rises the fountain Oceanus.

The first year I was in Florence I bought a small watercolor set and tried to paint the fountain, but was lacking in skill and confidence.  I vowed I would come back when I could paint it.  Last year I had the opportunity and it was wonderful to sit there and see this magical place come alive on the pages of my sketchbook.  In my mind were the watercolors John Singer Sargent painted of the sculptures and potted lemon trees in the Boboli Gardens.  He was a master of light and painted with bravura.

After painting, as I walked up the hill on the path that would lead me back to the city, I saw that the doors of the limonaia--the lemon tree greenhouse--were open.  I slipped into the cool interior. Sunlight flooded the floor from the windows.  Rows of lemon trees in their terracotta pots receded into the distance where a window hinted at the world beyond.  The painting above is my homage to Florence, to the oasis gardens that I loved so much, to Sargent, to sunlight.