Triple majoring in Art History, Ancient Mediterranean Civilizations (AMC), & Medieval and Early Modern Studies, senior Ella Langridge '25 received the Charles Garside AMC Summer Travel Award and HART Lovett Travel Fellowship earlier this year which supported her study abroad experience at the San Gemini Preservation Studies Program in Italy during the summer.
Enrolling in the Intersession Preservation Tour and the Traditional Painting Methods courses in the program, Ella visited sites in Florence, Siena, and Rome and received a wide range of hands-on experiences:
“The Traditional Painting Methods course, taught in the town of San Gemini, introduced students to the ethical and theoretical debates surrounding conservation and restoration in Italy, as well as to the materials and methods used by artists in the medieval to early-modern eras. This course included a hands-on component, in which students created works using these traditional materials and methods, including a fresco, a sgraffito carving, a gilded tempera painting on wood panel, and an oil painting on canvas.
These required plastering, painting on wet and dry plaster, carving plaster, execution of several different traditional gilding techniques, & use of lime, egg yolk, and linseed oil as binders for paint. Using these materials myself provided me with remarkable new insight into the materiality and labor of art, which is nearly impossible to grasp in the classroom environment.”
Over on this side of the globe, as the Jameson Fellow at the Bayou Bend Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston last year, Ella also researched and published an article “New light: Jane Freedom’s Sampler” this month in “The Magazine Antiques,” an arts publication that focuses on architecture, interior design, and fine and decorative arts. Read the full article here.
The Charles Garside AMC Summer Travel Grant supports archaeological training and course-related fieldwork abroad for AMC majors. It is named in honor of the late Charles Garside, a beloved professor of History at Rice, and is generously supported by Rice graduate and Humanities Advisory Board member Bruce Dunlevie.
[Fresco piece Ella completed for the Traditional Painting Methods workshop]
[Tempera and gilding panel painting, based on the “Annunciation with St. Maxima and St. Ansanus"]
[Oil painting workshop piece, based on Leonardo da Vinci’s “Lady with an Ermine"]
[Hilltop town of San Gemini, Umbria, Italy]