Was this some undiscovered sheet of pen drawings by Piranesi hitherto hidden within an ancient baroque cupboard in an abandoned monastery? The classical vaults, the nightmarish arches, the infinitude of corridors might be leading me to this conclusion? No. Of course not. It could not be. The paper was unyellowed by age, untainted by worms.

I turned another page in the album. The horrors of war! The same phantasmagorical apparitions fed one’s nerves whether they were depicted by Goya in the Peninsular campaigns or by an intrepid reporter on the Ukrainian front. Such ghoulish visions, such disregard for humanity, such hopelessness! Could there not be any comfort to be found in this world?

I searched deeper into the leaves. Perhaps there in the corner where a honeyed Madonna caressed her new-born child? Images of Correggian cupola frescos sprang to mind.

Now here was something rather more familiar, more reassuring. Our elegant casino, with its cornucopia of musical instruments depicted in stucco on its frieze, was accurately bordered.  

And that river-scape, so special in its contours in its variegated tree-line, that river-scape as fine and individual as any to be found along the world’s water-courses.

Just then I heard a sharp thrusting crack from outside. ‘A branch has broken off a tree by the river weir’. I looked across the waters of the Lima stream, newly replenished by the recent thunderstorms. The torn naked patch on the holm-oak’s trunk showed where its arboreal tributary had fallen. The sight brought me back from blissful scenes of idyllic pastoral worlds to the brutal but natural reality of life.

I returned to view other frames:  from the incisiveness of black Indian ink on pale paper to the seductiveness of impressionist flowerings of colours à la Berthe Morisot. But were all these visualizations from the same hand?

Of course they were! I know few who could weave their own midnight dreams and day-time gallery visits so succinctly, so fluently, so affirmatively into their art.  Each pen stroke, each movement of the nib, each gradation of a single colour, each variation of one line: a subtle dexterity fully describing Paul Klee’s famed phrase of’ taking a line for a walk’. Yes, truly the artist before my eyes was taking me for a walk with her lines; a walk where anything could be met from the wildest monsters to the gentlest angels to the most familiar landscapes.

The artist? Yes certainly someone with a strong background in graphic art combined with great talent and patience and someone whose creations stem from a self-taught perspective. So who is she? There I have given her sex away! You can find out more by going to Bagni di Lucca’s casino at Ponte a Serraglio where, thanks to the efforts of Valerio Ceccarelli of the town’s Pro Loco tourism association, a new exhibition centre has opened which has already displayed some fine exhibitions including those by Morena Guarnaschelli and Eva Alessandra Lombardi. It’s open Monday to Saturday mornings and Friday and Saturday afternoons.   But the artist’s name? Deenagh Miller!