The Artist and the Architect

A casually dressed man sits in Piazza Santo Stefano, legs crossed, with a sketchbook and soft pencil in hand. His provenance unknown, he strikes the observer as a gentlemen of leisure, perhaps a professional, perhaps an architect. His gaze is a study by which one determines proportions, angles and horizon. His pencil moves deliberately, with definitive strokes. His crossed legs and waviness of hair sits in contrast to his straight, drawn, lines. He is a study of contrast between his relaxed posture and intense application of graphite to paper. He is a study in water slowly freezing, time slowly stopping. He is a study in process, between the slow capture of creating and the photographer’s capture of discovery.

A photographer stands in Piazza Santo Stefano. The photographer is an architect, and points his camera at the architect transformed into artist. The artist sits at Il Caffè Delle Sette Chiese (The Cafe of the Seven Churches), his coffee cools on an adjoining table. The architect’s camera warms in his hands. The Cafe of the Seven Churches faces an amalgamation of four churches, Italian math incomprehensible. The artist draws the Basilica comprised of four churches while trying to discover the missing three. The photographer prepares the observer to discover the three for himself.