Author: Erin Murphy
Oil on canvas 
Size: 70x50 cm
 
The summer heat in Florence can be overwhelmingly oppressive. Everything seems to flatten out, cut by hard shadows and more simplified planes of color. Painted from life, this is one of many paintings I had going at the same time. At one point Florence had over one hundred medieval towers like the dark one in this painting. What drew me to this view was the succession of towers, big and small, going back in the distance.