10/20/2025
The main inspiration Gaeta can have on artists today is the sun, the sea, the land and the people. I took this photo of the sunset over the Tyrrhenian Sea this evening. Gaeta has seven amazing beaches that cover 10 kilometers. I took this photo at Sant’Agostino Beach (one of the furthest beaches in Gaeta which also has a IX century watch tower which they used to send illuminare signals to a chain of other towers that alerted the city of invading Saracens and Saracen pirates).
Cy Twombly lived in Gaeta for almost 30 years and he stated that he chose Gaeta after viewing the sunset there, which he described as a Homeric sunset. This Pontine coast is known as Ulysses Riviera. In my photo you can see a promontory that is Circeo, a beautiful national park full of ecological wonders and intense biodiversity, but also the legendary home of the Maga Circe, the witch who turned Odysseus’ men into swine. Cy Twombly was visiting a man who lived here named Nicola Del Roscio (has a foundation in Rome in the same building as the Gagosian Gallery) and that is how he came to know Gaeta and viewed the sunsets.
Excuse me, I am not trying to get overly poetically and metaphysically wishy-washy, I am just trying to stress that in my opinion the real inspiration that can come from a town like Gaeta can and should originate from the various light it can be viewed in daily, the panoramic immense view of the sea (a sea that is sometimes angry under grey sky and also sometimes calm under blue sky). There is a liberation from the dull drudgery of daily life, a liberation that an artist can experience fully here and that liberation can facilitate authentic creation. Cy Twombly knew this and this is why he stayed. You can see this type of result in some of the works of Italian artists like de Pisis, de Chirico, Carlo Carra’, Mafai, Severini, Clemente, Sandro Chia, and many others.
Gaeta can indeed inspire and there are many works of historical importance here, including Luca Giordano and Scipione “Il Gaetano” Pulzone, but there are also contemporary artists, a decent gallery called Pinacoteca Communal Antonio Capone, poetry readings and many cultural events.
