Piazza San Marco by Caela Conn Tyler

Renoir never completed his “Piazza San Marco”, but what a great start! The artist’s use of color is amazing. I was compelled to stitch this because of Renoir’s approach to color and his superb portrayal of perspective.

I was entranced by the colors, but what a challenge they turned out to be! Most of the lowest level of the cathedral lies in shadow, in the large recesses behind the columns. Yet Renoir had included saturated hues here. My usual approach to shadows (lessening intensity and saturation) did not work here. As the viewer’s eye moves up the cathedral façade to the domes, Renoir’s rendition positively glows. (Glow-in-the-dark threads were NOT an option!) After significant trial and error, I decided to stencil the building’s shape with gold fabric paint. Even though the stitch/thread coverage is solid, undercoating is routinely done by painters. I began stitching the cathedral’s lowest level with embroidery floss. As I proceeded up the buildings’ levels, I added more and more strands of Accentuate to “add” the glow.

I stitched the focal point cathedral and the small buildings that line a narrow street with very traditional, rather small stitches. The cathedral contains so much visual detail, that a traditional approach was required.

Although the campanile is definitely a hefty, solid structure, Renoir interpreted it as rather airy. I used a tulle underlay with an exposed canvas treatment to replicate Renoir’s approach.

I likewise used pieces of tulle to add visual weight to the pavement of the piazza. The perspective lines are strong, akin to arrows that point to the focal point. On the two sides flanking the center, I used strong diagonal stitch motifs. Even though the perspective lines are not truly diagonal, this did the trick. In the center area, I manipulated a Burden Stitch variation to establish true perspective.

The perspective lines are so strong and obvious, they would have overpowered the cathedral had the stitches been continued all the way to its entrance. I used a quiet traméd blackwork, with a very subtle diagonal appearance in the space before the doors. This allowed both the piazza pavement and the basilica to retain maximum impact.