The rain it raineth every day .... and in Pisa with Kandinsky

Large areas of Italy - Tuscany, Liguria, Umbria and Lazio - have been underwater recently and still are.  We've had apocalyptic thunderstorms and rain.  One small seaport had a tornado, which in Italy is called 'La tromba d'aria' - the trumpet of the air.   Apparently the floods, mud slides and winds have caused as much damage as the Emilia earthquake - factories and houses, roads and railways - near us a whole hamlet was covered when a part of the mountainside came down.  Fortunately, loss of life has been very small.

On Thursday we took an afternoon off and went to Pisa.  The Arno is very full, and has been cascading through the streets of Florence, but here it was contained, though running high and fast towards the sea. 

Pisa looked very beautiful in the rain with the lights just coming on and a very odd open window of sky - the eye of the storm? - where the river and the sea meet.

We came to Pisa for the Kandinsky exhibition, which I will write about later - more than fifty of his paintings and drawings from the early period of his life, charting the progress of his work from figurative (rooted in Russian folk art and folk tales) to abstract.

This 'Autumn'  in 1908

'In Blue', 1925

 There were quite a few quotes from his own writing and I spent a lot of time reading them - the sheer joy of colour comes off the page.
"The sun melts all of Moscow down to a single spot that, like a mad tuba, starts all of the heart and all of the soul vibrating ....  Houses and churches in pink, lilac, yellow, white, blue, pistachio green, or flame red - each sings its own chorus."
Which is exactly how I feel when I look at his work!

Neil has posted some of the paintings on his blog here.