I had started this work in late winter of 2024. It was a slowly changing ‘island’ landscape, a theme I have been involved with since my art college days. In late March, a week’s visit to Rome caused the painting to evolve into an Italianate landscape and into this place came Roman ruins, a Renaissance palace and a just visible duomo. 

All that remains of the painting before Rome is the upturned boat, the beech tree and the central Scots pine. I do like to be geographically and geologically accurate in my work but I liked the Scots pine so much that I kept it in.