click to enlargePainting From Memory - look at this. The painting on the left is rendered from memory and the photo is how the scene looks today.

Franco Magnani

left his small Tuscan village in 1958 to live in America. Eight years later he taught himself to paint and rendered scenes of his village entirely from memory. There is some distortion, some scenes are composites of several views, whilst others seem to be taken through the eyes of a small child. Still others rearrange the positions and relative sizes of streets and structures. Pontito - the subject of these works, was once a village of a thousand inhabitants. Today there are about eighty mostly elderly people who have returned after living in America or larger Italian cities. They live off a combination of their pensions and by tending small gardens and raising animals. Sound idyllic doesn't it? Wonder if they have room for me? More paintings and photographs here at Exploratorium.edu. And yet more fascinating images from this so-called memory artist here at his site where you can also buy prints.