A Lane In Italy 

Tina Blau captured this lane in Italy with oil on canvas sometime in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century. Its unidealized view of working-class life, and the artist's decision to focus on the alley rather than any important buildings, suggests that this work is not a conventional landscape painting. Blau was Austrian, but she traveled extensively throughout Europe, especially in Italy and Holland. In Italy, she would have seen many artists who were painting similar subjects, such as views of daily life and work. These artists were responding to an increasing interest in representing the lives of ordinary people, a movement that was related to both Realism in art and the rise of social democracy in politics. As art historians, we can find out more about Blau’s artistic formation through the records of the academies, galleries, and artists' groups with which she was associated.