Portofino

You might think that Nanette would get tired of interrupting our vacations with long pauses while I stop to do one of my Plein Air paintings. But my wife knows me too well for that. She enters enthusiastically into the adventure, sometimes actually choosing my subjects for me.

When the two of us stumbled on this view of Portofino, on the Italian Riviera, it was Nanette who said “Oh, Tom, what a wonderful seascape that is. You just have to paint it.”

What stretched before us was a wonderful old harbor with a fabulous fleet of fishing boats dancing on waves. A colorful array of ancient buildings tumbled down the hillside, almost spilling into the blue Mediterranean. The old town merges imperceptibly into the vineyards that flourish on the fertile hills.

Portofino embodies a lifestyle that I see as essentially European – where men live comfortably on earth and sea with no attempt to dominate either. The scale is eminently human, the harmony between man and his world is unsurpassed. For me, Portofino embodies a mood, an experience of living, that I hope the painting allows you to share.