An Enchanted Window

I’ve heard about the lagoon city of Venice since I was a child – my father used to tell me about the charm of the place, its amazing architecture, the hundreds of bridges and the gondolas floating on the serene canals even though he had never been there himself. In fact, he told me about other places too that he dubbed the Seven Wonders of the World. Many decades later, I discovered that not all the places he mentioned were remarkable ancient constructions but it did not change the fact that they still and do emanate some kind of awe and splendour at human architectural marvels even after many millenniums. Over the years, the places he has been telling me stories about somehow or other built my interest to visit them and see them with my very eyes.

On my maiden trip to Venice, I was delighted to be in the company of my husband. We visited in the early June of 2012 when the weather was mild but devoid of the throng of tourists. I decided on a Guest House after researching the area and reading the reviews from the other guests online. We arrived at the property safely, but not before having to lug suitcases along a paved street and across a bridge that made us walk about 800 meters. Certainly not my idea of fun, but no one stopped me from booking a hotel closer to the train station, so long as I was willing to break the bank…

As we brought packed instant food, my husband asked me to soak the pre-cooked food in the sink filled with hot water as the place didn’t have any kettle for boiling. It was long passed lunch time and he was digging my tote in search of leftover airline food like chocolates and biscuits and being almost 100kg and standing close to 6 feet, I commiserated.  To my disappointment, the water was not hot enough to cook the food well. I prepared them nonetheless and what we had later was half cooked rice with lukewarm spicy beef dish. I remember the two of us sat quietly on the bed holding paper plates in our hands chewing the beef and trying hard to swallow the rice that felt like sand while staring and blinking at each other. What a great start to my ideal vacation. (Pout).

My first time in Venice. Will there be a second?  

On the second day, we set out on our tour to explore scenic Venice. Apart from the gondolas and vaporettos, Venice is famous for the hundreds of bridges that span across the channels connecting the small islands. I salivated at the sights of tourists riding the gondola with one particular barge ferrying passengers with a singer to serenade them. He sang an Italian operatic number at the top of his lungs that everyone who was standing on the bridges watching cheered and applauded him when the gondola gently swayed passed them. I watched the passengers admiring the singer and his impeccable voice with envy but the ride was just too costly for two people that I would rather not live the dream and had better spent the money on a nice handbag. (Wink).

The gondola with a singer serenading the passengers

The long walk on the pedestrian-only streets of Venice took a toll on my feet but the thrilled kid in me told me to wage on and hide the pain from my husband, fearing that he would drag me back to the hotel to recuperate. While crossing one of the bridges, I turned to my left and saw this lovely Venetian balcony with wooden-framed glass window leaves and white curtains that was decorated with colourful flowers. I could only figure out petunias in 7 hues, hydrangeas, geraniums, roses and vines embellishing the tiny gallery of sort. The view was so captivating that for a while, I was frozen in a moment of enchantment. I wondered if Juliet could be calling out her Romeo from a balcony so beautiful as that one though the setting was in a more than a hundred kilometers away Verona (teehee...!). I couldn’t resist taking many pictures of it – they would make useful references for my painting later. 

I managed to capture the images of a few other windows but the one I saw earlier kept on playing in my head like slides in one of those business presentations, except that the pictures were more stimulating. I knew then that I had to paint the picture or otherwise, I would suffer from the restless syndrome that could see me going on window shopping for extended hours trying on clothes, shoes and handbags but never buying any of them, much to the contempt of the sales assistants.

The actual window

And yes, eventually upon return home, I painted the scene while getting myself lost in an extended period of solitude, enjoying productive hours disengaged from the world and all that was happening around it. I enjoyed working on the piece as I watched the objects started to take shape, feeling like I had embraced the whole of Venice in spite of being there for only a few days. After all, this is one of my father’s favourite places that I’m painting.

The painting I did two weeks later at home