Italian words easily learned from art Works and Art Museums; house, museum and more

Italian flag

It is easy to learn Italian words for foods from menus in restaurants or online and from recipes and good sold in supermarkets.
Another fun way to learn Italian is by looking at list of works by your favourite Italian artists. I just looked at works by de Chirico.

Some Italian words translated

Italian - English

A
amore - love

anatomico - anatomical

anniversario - anniversary

autoritratto - self-portrait

B
bagno - bath

bagni - baths

biscotti - biscuits

busto - bust

C
casa - house
cavalli - horses

con - with

D
del - of the

di - of

donna - woman

due - two

F
frutta - fruit

I
interno - interior

L
le - the

M
mare - sea

maschere - mask

metafisico - metaphysical
museo - museum

mysteriosi - mysterious

N
nudo - nude

P
principe - prince

R
rimorso - remorse
riposa - rest

ritratto - portrait

T
test - head

triangolo - triangle

English - Italian

Some Italian words translated

love - amore

A
anatomical - anatomico

anniversary - anniversario

B

bath - bagno 

Baths - bagni 

biscuits - biscotti 

bust - busto 

F
fruit - frutta

H
horses - cavalli
house - casa

I
interior - interno 
L
love - amore

le - the

M 
mask - maschere 

metaphysical - metafisico 
museum - museo

mysterious -  mysteriosi
N

nude - nudo 
O
of - di
of the - del
P
portrait - ritratto

prince - principe 
R
remorse - rimorso 

rest - riposa 

S
sea - mare
self-portrait - autoritratto

T
the - le
test - head

triangolo - triangle

two -due

W

with - con

woman - donna

Useful Websites

duolingo.com

wikipedia

wikivoyage


Author
Author, Author! About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. (Not related to the actress.)
Author of twenty books including: Quick Quotations; Who Said What When.
See books and profiles on Lulu.com and Amazon, such as Wedding Speeches & Toasts. Also watch videos on YouTube.
See other posts on singers and statues and languages and destinations.

LANGUAGE TEACHER/TRAINER
If you want to learn to speak the Queen's English, or Received Pronunciation. join me at my online toastmasters club,
Braddell Heights Advanced. Wednesdays, 7-9 Singapore time which is seven hours ahead of London, England.
I am also a member of
Singapore Online.9-12 pm, Singapore time, Fridays. I am also a member of
Tampines Changkat Advanced.
Harrovians, London.
Toastmasters International Find a Club
https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club
https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=upSEBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA21&lpg=PA21&dq=quick+quotations
lulu.com/shop/angela-lansbury/who-said-what-when/paperback/product-21713991
drink
Other posts about Italian food, drink, restaurants and artists and museums and destinations.
Previous post on de Chirico.
Please share links to your favourite posts.

How to Improve Your Portrait Photos - Beauty Cam does a great job on portraits

How to improve your photos? Beauty Cam does a great job on faces. It seems to do a soft focus.

Why would you need it? Great for family reunions and Christmas get-togethers. No need to worry that you are not looking your best.

You can reassure the camera-shy, reluctant relative that your photo will flatter.

Recalling and Recording Grandma's and Grandpa's Days in Singapore or anywhere: a world of Cinderellas

Problem
The grass is always greener and it looks so easy. Taxi drivers assume all Westerners are rich and descended from rich families, lazy people who never work. When you ask older people about their past, you hear telling details about life long ago.

My father lived to the age of 93. After he retired, he used to volunteer at the local hospital.

I asked about his childhood. He said he would take a cooked potato in his pocket for lunch. In winter the heat of the potato kept him warm at the unheated school.

In Singapore, as a Westerner, you meet people who have a house or a car and a maid and you assume they have always had an easy life. But as soon as they tell you about their family history, you find it wasn't so.

'Moona' told me that she was one of eight children. Moona's mother ran a coffee stall; the day after giving birth she went back to work.

Moon'as mother could not read nor write Chinese, so she chose a name for her daughter which had few strokes, so it was easy for her mother to write.

Adoption and Helping Others
Moona's mother and father looked after orphans and adopted or fostered children. When the children left school, the adopted family had to help the children and others like the orphans to find work.

Helping A Struggling Artist
One young man was an artist who could not find work. So Moona's father commissioned the young man to paint a portrait of Moon's father and his wife. After Moona's mother died, Moon'as father commisioned another double portrait to be painted, using a photo.

Recording The Past
Moona has the family portraits and tells the famly stories. But she says her grown-up nieces and nephews are not interested in the family history. I think it is important to write it down. So I have made a contribution.

Please write down your family history as told by your elders. Just a sentence or two is enough to capture the essence of the story.

How To Make A Family History Booklet
When we were planning a 90th birthday party for my mother-in-law, every weekend we had a family meal. I asked her questions each weekend, going through her life:
Where did you go to school?
What did you do with your parents at weekends?
What did you do in the war?
Where did you meet your husband?
Where was your first house?
What were the poeple you worked with like?
Did you get on with your cousins?
Did you see your grandparents?
How is life different today from your childhood?

I went off to the bathroom and wrote the answers down in longhand in my diary. When I reched home, I typed up the answers.

When I had enough material, I printed a booklet. It cost less to print three copies, than the cost of most of the giant boxes of chocolates or champagne or other gifts I could have bought her.

When she saw it, she was amazed. She asked me, "Where did you get all this information?"

Two years later she developed Alzheimer's. The good thing about Alxheimer's from a reseracher's point of view, is that the elderly tend to remember the past which is stored in their memory bank, without being able to add and sort new memories.

They can't remember yesterday. But they can recall two or three stories from their past which they repeat endlessly.

At this point, as after they have died, you are very pleased to have a record of their life. You are also glad to have been able to share it with them when they could appreciate the trouble you have taken and the honour they feel that you have made their life history into a booklet or book.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please bookmark and share links to your favourite posts.

Re-painting And Finishing Holiday Paintings With Erasers and Signatures

Self-portrait by Angela Lansbury. Copyright. 

Problem
You arrive home with your paintings done on holiday.

Now you have more time. You have space. No need to pack up and go back to the hotel. Your work can stay on the kitchen table or desk.

First you feel pleased and proud. Then you think:

AMATEUR? / PROFESSIONAL?

AMATEUR?
1 That's a bit basic, amateur. A five-year-old could have done that.

No.

Even if they could, on the other hand, it has a certain primitive charm. Like Rousseau. Like Toulouse Lautrec. Like impressionists.

PROFESSIONAL
Better at a distance. The artist is always painting close up. I can hang it on a wall and stand at a distance. Very effective.

Other people liked it. They didn't just say, "Oh - is that yours? Interesting ..." They said, "That's you! It's a good likeness. I like the frame. Very original."

I didn't think it was original. I thought I'd seen many 'frame' pictures before. There's a famous painting in the National Gallery in London, showing the artist at his easel, in the distance.

Why the frame?
a) I drew exactly what I saw. That included the frame.

b) I wanted to include the frame.  If I see something near the focus of my painting, such as a doorway or window frame I will often include it, or move it sideways or downwards into the picture.

Signature as Metaphor
I must make more effort to make this a signature, or permanent feature of my paintings. My other feature of self-portraits is my hand holding the pen or pencil or watercolour pencil.

Signature as Signature
I also have a signature in which my hand is drawing the signature. But that takes up space. The frame and the signature can distract from the subject of the painting.

Yet, when I am painting a self-portrait, a hand holding a pencil is appropriate. Why? Firstly, because it mirrors reality at that moment. For that moment in time, I was stopped as a painter. I was not busy, active, laughing, moving, cooking, cleaning, chatting. I was still, frozen, silent, concentrating, contemplating, peaceful, painting.

Secondly, the hand, although secondary to the eyes which want to engage with you, makes an additional statement that I want to be permanently known, remembered, identified, classified, honoured, as a professional painter.

However, when I am drawing somebody else, I want to concentrate on them, their eyes, their mouth, not distract. However, you should be able to come back to a painting later, or a second time in quick succession, and notice details which you did not spot at first glance.

Years ago I read an article or book about photography which said that you should look for a frame for your photograph. Now I always look for a tree to frame a photo of a building such as a skyscraper or church or group of people.

In a painting, the artist always has the opportunity to be creative and insert a frame for the top, sides, and often forgotten bottom front of the picture.

Susan taught us to draw a pencil frame about an inch around all four edges of our paper so that the picture would not have details at the edge which end up covered by the frame nor an inner mount.

(I have often found that y signature is half covered by the mount or frame. I have so many paintings and photos that I have run out of space on my walls.

My family are tidy-minded. They keep removing pictures because they hate clutter. They want space and uninterrupted clean walls.

Perhaps unconsciously they want no distractions from little squares behind when they are talking to you.  They also want you to focus on them when they speak, not admiring paintings over their shoulder.

b) I Like a picture to be self-framing. I like the arch of a doorway or arch in a church. Trees surrounding a lake.

The traditional parallel lines of the railway. Or path from the front and sides of the picture narrowing almost A shape to the centre of the horizon. Do you remember the classic advertisement for Start-rite shoes, little feet have far to go, showing a pair of boy and girl toddlers or small children, seen from back view walking into the distance, down a pale road edged by darker trees?

PENCIL LINES
I must be more professional. I must rub out the pencil lines.
I often get out a sketch book from last year and look at a caricature. I immediately notice pencil lines and start rubbing them out.

COLOURS
I must intensify the colours. Add colours. Edge with black waterproof pen.

WATERPROOF PEN
I always buy washable pens. I put pens in my pockets and they leak over my clothes.

However, on Writers' Holiday, Susan Alison loaned us waterproof gel pens. The advantage is that if you want to add watercolour paint afterwards, you black pen outlines, eg across the top of the head, don't leak into the colours or blonde hair below nor smudge uneven grey into the white paper above.

I must tone down the absurd unnatural oblongs on the sky.

Angela Lansbury
Travel writer and photographer, author, illustrator, caricature artist. (I have several more posts about paintings and painting holidays. Please bookmark and share and tweet your favourite posts.)

While waiting for trains in Singapore, let your eyes explore the advertising

Problem
You stand waiting for a train in Singapore - never more than six minutes, mostly 2-4 minutes. Meanwhile, what can you do?

Answer
Watch the moving advertisements and read the posters. I earnestly watch the public service messages about what to do in emergencies, and wheelchair access.

I had never heard of Xiamen Airways. However, on close inspection I discovered that an advertisement I must have passed many times, had a small temple hidden just beyond the corner of the lady's eye. I looked further and found more hidden pictures.