Rome had been high on my list of places to paint for some time. Like many visitors, I was struck by the feeling that Rome exists on a scale that other Italian cities don’t. Not to mention the juxtaposition of titanic ancient structures and Renaissance opulence. I actaully like a lot of the fascist architecture too, aesthetically speaking. I had thought before I went that it would be these strange marriages that I’d seek out – baroque facades built on top of temple ruins; the crumbling walls of a bath house neatly coddled inside a busy roundabout; a warm sunset on the eery geometric columns in EUR. Instead, after a couple of weeks my painting became more programmatic than it usually is as I struck upon some themes I sought out across the whole body of work.

I’d started off by painting in and around Trastevere, trying to avoid the crowds by seeking out narrower streets.

I also had a bash at what I thought more typically Roman subjects and views.

I also met up with local artists and made it out of town a couple of times. My friend Kelly Medford knows all the good spots.

I then started to think slightly differently about my compositions. I began paring down to focus more on individual objects or single elements.

(I couldn’t resist painting this during one of the many weeks Italy was without a government during my stay.)

I really liked the composition of this picture but I was set up on the steps just next to the Capitoline Museum and was promptly booted off. In fairness they said I could carry on painting so long as I didn’t use an easel but after so many years that habit was hard to kick.

I began taking the individual elements I was looking at and moving them around to see what became more or less dynamic.

I then struck upon the idea of not only focussing on specific elements of views, but to crop them aggressively.

One is usually trying as a landscape painter not to be subject-driven but to seek out compositions based on pictorial elements such as tonal arrangement, colour harmonies or a variety of shapes. I found that close-cropping to focus only on the specific element I was interested in can actually be quite liberating. The Corte Suprema di Cassation (The Supreme Court) is widely considered to be the ugliest building in Rome and I can see why. The over-rustification of the surfaces in an attempt to convey the fortitude and permanence of the seat of justice is mis-matched with the scale of the building so that at a distance, rather than appearing solid and dense, the whole thing looks like it’s covered in barnacles and faintly ridiculous. Up close however, taking in just a corner of it, I found it strangely beautiful and that picture is probably my favourite of the lot. I found that by de-contextualising specific elements, a dynamism can start to appear on the canvas. At least, that was my theory.

I lived on the edge of Monti near the Papal Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore which became a bit of an obsession. It’s got a suitably ornate baroque facade which I ignored completely in favour of the magnificent apse protruding from the rear. I tried to use the angles created by the drum shape against the flat of the wall to create dynamic movement.

There were more pictures of Santa Maria Maggiore besides, but as with most experiments there were a number of casualties along the way.