Even Monet had problems with the Italian Post-Office | Preparing for art making in Lisbon

On developing a strategy of wilful ignorance and packing lite for sketching and art-making in Portugal.

Moving to a new country offers fascinating (and sometimes frustrating) insights into long established customs and ways of doing things, and dealing with the Italian post office comes high on the list in frustrations. The first (of many frustrations) was when I needed to send my paintings to the UK for my degree studies. My local post office can’t deal with parcels (which begs the question - “but isn’t this a post office?”) so I had to take a bus trip into the centre.

Standing there nervously with my numbered ticked in hand, I prayed that I might get the friendly face of the lady who speaks English. But no, it was Mr Grumpy … damn, damn, damn! I waved the parcel to show my need to hand over at the dedicated parcel counter. With the glass window raised, he thrust towards me a form and grubby pen, and wandered off. Eventually he came back, inspected my attempt at writing Italian with occasional nodding and tutting, and said in broken English:

“You have permission?”
“Eh?”, I said.
“Permission to send art out of Italy?”
“but kind sir”, I said, “these are the products of my own fair hand and I don’t understand what permission I need” (or something like that).
Sensing I was a common straniero he repeated loudly “You have permission?”
“Eh?”, I said.
“from the Ministry?”
“What? Who?”, I exclaimed.

The counter window swiftly unlatched and rattled down separating us from any further discourse. I left with my parcel and tail between my legs, doing the walk of shame, under the critical gaze of waiting customers.

A simple pen sketch of the central Post Office of Sanremo, made on location. © David Bell, 2016

So here’s the thing: any work of art to be shipped outside Italy must have approval from the Ministry of Culture’s Office of Exportation. At least, on the positive side, the process can be done online, loading up digital images, entering information on dimensions and materials and provenance. And, to my surprise, within a week, I received (in the post) documents with signed and stamped permission.

So, there I was, back on the bus to the Post Office, and I don’t care if I get Mr Grumpy, I’m ready for you - I’ll keep my permissions in my pocket and then, as you demand, I can flourish them with pride and alacrity.

The counter window goes up, form and pen thrust to me, and I fill the form in super-extra-double-quick time. Mr Grumpy nods and tuts: makes some scribbles, a few ticks, takes my parcel, punches details into the computer, I pay, I leave. But, what the hell? He didn’t want my permission documents!

Claude Monet had a similar run-in with the Italian Post Office, in 1884. Art historian Daniel Wildenstein [1] recounts how Monet, after visiting and painting in the towns and villages around Sanremo, was stopped at the border while attempting to cross back into France, with his own paintings. Wildenstein writes:

“He [Monet] innocently declared a “case of paintings for Vernon” and was requested by the post-office clerk to provide a certificate from the Italian Academy ‘stating the provenance of the said paintings’. Neither explanations nor protests made the least difference.”

Monet was instructed to take all his paintings to Genoa (160 kms / 100 miles away) for authorisation. After talks with the local mayor of Bordighera (a very British-influenced seaside town just west of Sanremo) it was decided that Monet would attempt to leave with the paintings using the old corniche road to France, to avoid the over-zealous post-office clerk. Wildenstein continues:

“Taking advantage of the Sunday evening laxity of customs officers, the convoy reached its destination without further ado.”

My own experience with the post office taught me an early valuable lesson: rules and laws in Italy are variable depending on many factors. To ease my passage through Italian bureaucracy, I should be a little more savvy about what information I write on forms. I’ve adopted a straniero’s strategy of wilful ignorance.

Preparing for Lisbon

Next week I’ll be in Lisbon with a dozen or so students and tutors from the Open College of Arts. The plan is to visit the PADA international arts residency, where incumbents can develop their art practice for up to 2 months in a dedicated studio space. Also planned is a visit to the Paula Rego museum Casa das Historias, and a visit to the Museu Coleção Berado where there are works by lots of famous (and not so famous) artists. As a painter, I’m especially excited at the prospect of seeing works by Francis Bacon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Karel Appel, Georg Baselitz and (of course) Paula Rego.

There’s also scheduled to be lots of walking and art making around Lisbon and Cascais. In anticipation, I’ve been checking my art bag. I’m fighting the tendency to overload myself: there was a time when I’d take every grade of graphite pencil, and every size of ink pen - “just in case”, but I’d always use the same one or two favourites. Over time I’ve pared back my sketching kit to my essentials (which still looks quite a lot 🙄)

Preparing for Lisbon - my art kit

For fellow artist / sketchers who might be interested - here’s what I’m taking with me:

• Paper - loose sheets of white Artway 170g/m2, size A3 (I much prefer loose sheets over bound sketchbooks), and two boards with clips;

• 20ml tubes of various colours of Italian Maimeri acrylic paint - a very portable size;

• Liquitex titanium white acrylic jumbo marker - which is my main supply of white paint for mixing with the other colours;

• a variety of my favourite Derwent Inktense sticks, some Conté sticks and some Faber Castell oil pastels;

• and (new for me) are some Stabillo Woody pencils - the black Woody is awesome when engaged with water.

• My tools include a couple of painting knives, a couple of scrapers, cleaning rags, fingers (not shown!) and last, but not least, a small water spray bottle.

Hopefully I’ll keep up my resistance to avoid adding more stuff. The bag and contents currently weighs-in at 1.3kg (2.8 lbs) so it’s just about at its limit for painting and sketching on-the-go.

I’ll tell you how it all went and post some of my work in the next blog post.

About me

My name is David Bell and I’m an artist living in Sanremo, Italy. I write this blog for my supporters, giving an insight to my art and life generally living on the beautiful Riviera of Flowers.

Ciao4now … alla prossima.

References

[1] Wildenstein, D. (1996) MONET: The Triumph of Impressionism. Translated by Miller, C. (2015). TASCHEN GmbH.