Mosaics, Monuments and Music
Illustration inspiration from a trip to Ravenna, Italy
Dear Reader,
this weekend I went away with the choir I sing with to the beautiful and fascinating city of Ravenna. I learned so much and saw so many amazing things, I’d like to write about just a few of them here and show you some influences this trip is having on my illustration work.
For a start, I took my sketchbook. I’ve been neglecting my sketchbook a little recently and this trip was a great opportunity to get back into drawing from life again. I took only a few materials in a small pencil case as I didn’t expect to have much time to sit and draw. As it turned out I had almost NO time to sketch during the visit and I mostly began roughing out drawings that I had to finish off later on.
This is the concertina sketchbook-page I worked on showing some of the buildings and one image form a mosaic. I often limit myself to one complimentary colour palette for sketching from life and I’m glad I took purple and yellow; the neutrals made from mixing the two are pretty close to the terracotta bricks and roof tiles in Ravenna.
As soon as we arrived in the city it was clear that Ravenna is a city of Mosaics, historically and still now. All of the central street corners have mosaic name-plaques, and many buildings are adorned with flower plaques too. These last are part of a recent project declaring the city to be against violence towards women.
They look like little jewels on the buildings next to the main doors; a beautiful, important and supportive message.
I learned that drawing on the move and also following/listening to the really great tour guide in Italian is too much for my brain to process all at once! There was just so much history everywhere and I won’t even begin to relate it for you now!
This is the Basilica di Sant’Apollinare Nuovo. The tower of the Basilica is unusually round, as are many of the towers in the city. Ravenna was once two islands in a lagoon connected to the sea, a little like Venice today, and one theory is that the towers were originally light-houses. Over the centuries the sea has retreated and Ravenna is now just damp and marshy with water below the surface wherever you dig. The sketches I made across this concertina page are all watercolour using just yellow and purple, with pencil, pencil crayon and white Posca-pen detail added later when I had more time to sit and draw.
The mosaics in the old buildings were just incredible. This is a photo from inside the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia which was built in the 5th century when Ravenna was the capital of the Roman Empire. The mosaics are made of fragments of glass (which was extremely expensive at the time) and show extremely sophisticated patterns and representations. This 3D-effect labyrinth edging under an arch is breath-taking.
Inside the mausoleum it was too dark and too busy to draw, but I especially liked the plant motifs that twined around the animals and people so I photographed some and added this stag to my sketchbook later.
The Basilica San Vitale was built later in the 6th century and was originally all covered with mosaics inside. Only the mosaics around the altar section have survived and these were hugely influential for Dante (who spent his last years in Ravenna), Boccaccio, Klimt, the Arts and Crafts movement, the list goes on and on.
In addition to the stunning mosaics, the acoustic in the Basilica is also fantastic. As a visiting choir, we were given permission to have a quick sing during our tour. Here we are, you can listen to us singing ‘Ave Maria’ by Arcadelt. I’m in the front row with the orange hat. The basilica was really cold, and opinion was divided about whether it was more respectful to keep a hat on or take it off in church, so I kept mine on. For anyone who has sung with me in other choirs: yes, I know, but it is what it is. I really enjoyed singing here, just listen to the way the notes float up into the ceiling. I really have to get that in an illustration somehow!
One more sketch for you: the Museo Arcivescovile with Capella di Sant’Andrea, and to the side the Battistero Neoniano.
I think this was, to me, the most impressive mosaic I saw in a true sense of the word. I am not a religious person but I grew up alongside the Church of England. I went to Brownies and Guides, I sang in Cathedral, church and chapel choirs. Stories and images from the Christian faith are part of my cultural upbringing, but the images in these 5th and 6th-century mosaics were new to me. In this old Ravenna, Christ was not crucified. The cross is there as a symbol only, not as a crucifix. The story of Christ’s life is depicted differently. I had a clear idea of what Christ ‘looked like’ in my mind, formed by the representations of him that life has placed in-front of me since I was a child. But in this 5th-century chapel, I didn’t even recognise Christ. What, no blonde hair and blue eyes? No beard? No robe? This is really suppose to be the same person? Someone at some time in history decided to remodel the image of Christ to suit some other purpose, and they gave out a different story to the masses. We can’t know which, if any, was more accurate. It’s all too long ago. This gave me much to reflect upon and felt all too familiar in our current climate of social media, AI and fake news.
Oh I need to stop writing, this is too long, well done and thank you if you’re still with me! Here are two last pictures for you; one of the free-flow colour-play collages (that I make regularly) from before my trip to Ravenna, and the one that came out of my thoughts after the trip. Fairly apparent I think?
There was so much to see and to learn during this trip, I expect that these new ideas will keep seeping into my work for a long time to come. If you ever get the chance, I would definitely recommend going to visit Ravenna. I hope you enjoyed this tiny glimpse of the treasure there!
See you next week,
Hannah xx
P.S.
My exhibition is finally down and finished, that has been most of my work for the past two months! If you missed it, I now have a video tour of my exhibition free to view up on Youtube, you can view it here.
Many thanks to Michael Munnik for allowing me to use his beautiful music in the background of my tour video and also alongside my time-lapse video here, go and listen to his songs on Bandcamp here.
So much to enjoy here, Hannah, not least your obvious passion for the art which leaps off the page. The mosaics are beautiful, and so too are your sketches. And the singing was glorious. Thanks for sharing.