Mick Brown and Jeni Brown

Critic of final exhibition

For decades, perhaps centuries — nobody is sure — one of the the most striking medieval buildings in Barga Vecchia was abandoned to rubble and firewood storage. Its original function and name lost to memory, the enormous structure facing the Teatro dei Differenti across narrow Vicolo del Duomo was a vacant, anonymous tribute to the grand vertical arches and monumental stonework of pre-Renaissance Tuscany.

Michael and Jane Richardson, the building’s owners since 2017, have devoted five years to filling that void.  “Quattro Archi.” Their goal is to endow this long-neglected masterpiece with a significant role in Barga’s formidable community of artists and musicians.

On Friday, July 15, Quattro Archi’s new life opened with an extraordinary exhibition of works by painters Mick and Jeni Brown of Anglesey, Wales. They are the first beneficiaries of an artist-in-residence program aimed at picturing and repicturing Barga — its daily and seasonal tempo, cultural legacy and stunning landscape — from diverse perspectives. The Browns spent three months living and working here, bringing their own very distinctive creative visions to the experience.

The boisterous exclamations of Mick Brown’s canvases are counterpointed, in brilliant understatement, by Jeni Brown’s work. A young woman caresses the strings of a cello in the warm glow of a rose sunset. A contemplative table set for two awaits its diners. Trees blush softly into extravagant bloom. Her paintings are sublimely quiet, even meditative, in their mood and suggestion.

The effect is a dialogue within a dialogue, both artists in conversation with each other and with Barga at the same time. “You look out a window and there are stories everywhere,” says Mick.
She was captivated by “the generosity, the warmth, the music,” adds Jeni. “I’d always felt I had a northern soul before I came here.” 

article by Frank Viviano 

Articles from the 8 times Pulitzer Prize nominated journalist/ best selling author and barganews staff.