At Villa Falconieri watercolor guides a new contemporary humanism. In an era in which art seems to oscillate between spectacle, technology and the overproduction of images, there exists a language that returns to claim density, thought and responsibility. That language is watercolor. And its epicenter, unexpectedly, is today located at Villa Falconieri, south of Rome.

The International Watercolor Academy is an institution that in just a few years has moved from being a European cultural project to a global platform present in 54 countries. At its head, President Tiziana Tagliabue maintains a clear thesis: watercolor is not a minor technique; it is one of the most precise languages for interpreting contemporary complexity.

The Origin: An Encounter and an Idea of Renaissance

The project was born from an intellectual convergence even before an institutional one. In October 2022, Tiziana Tagliabue and the Academy team met with Professor Luigi Miraglia, Rector of the Vivarium Novum Academy, an international center for humanistic studies inspired by Renaissance schools. Here humanitas is cultivated: classical education, human dignity, and critical thought.

From this meeting arose a strategic alliance around the Poikile Project, promoted by Vivarium Novum and supported by leading universities and institutions, with an ambitious goal: to foster a new Renaissance of figurative art.

«We do not merely promote a technique: we defend a cultural vision of art.»

In this context, watercolor ceases to be a simple medium and becomes an ethical position.

Villa Falconieri as an International Cultural Laboratory

In 2023 this vision took public form with the first international event dedicated to the “Grand Tour”, organized by the Vivarium Novum Academy, the International Watercolor Academy and the Municipality of Frascati.

The choice of location was not accidental: the Castelli Romani, historic territory of the Grand Tour, and in particular the sixteenth-century Villa Falconieri — which hosted Turner, Corot, Sargent and Van Wittel. Here exhibitions, lectures, workshops, demonstrations and plein-air painting sessions were held. Admission, deliberately, was free.

«Excellence must not be elitist; it must be accessible.»

In 2024, from May 31 to June 2, the proposal expanded with Impressions of Eternity – with watercolor in search of light and color, held across Villa Falconieri, the Aldobrandini Scuderie Museum and the Valadier Walls. This was not a simple exhibition but a critical device: watercolor as a tool to question memory, identity, light, time and contemporary fragility.

In 2025, from June 13 to 15, this line of research found a new expression in the international event LACUS Memoriae – the sign of water between memory and creation, which brought together some of the most important international watercolor masters in exhibitions, demonstrations and public meetings.

The core of the event was the major international exhibition at the Aldobrandini Scuderie Museum, conceived as a reflection on memory as a living form of the present and as the foundation of contemporary artistic creation.

This evolution will continue in 2026 with the international event LUMINIS ORAE, which will again take place between Villa Falconieri and the Aldobrandini Scuderie Museum, confirming the continuity of a cultural project aimed at renewing the role of watercolor in contemporary art.

A Global Network, A Living Ecosystem

Today the Academy is present in 54 countries — from Alaska to South Africa, from the United States to Azerbaijan, from Europe to Asia, from Latin America to Oceania — but its expansion does not follow a logic of accumulation.

Rather, it is a living cultural ecosystem in which each artist brings their own history and territory. Among the members are international artists such as Álvaro Castagnet (Uruguay), Paul Ching-bor (USA), Elisabeth Allison (USA), Nick Alm (Sweden), Mar Aragón (Spain), Pasqualino Fracasso (Italy) Olga Litvinenko (Russia),Charles Villeneuve (France-Spain), Yuko Nagayama (Japan), Herman Pekel (Australia), Mimi Jeongmi Joun  (Korea), Liu Yi (China) Charles Williams (UK) Eudes Correia ( Brazil) and many more. Intercultural dialogue does not aim to homogenize but to amplify differences.

«Watercolor is a common language, but not a uniform one.»

The Academy also incorporates an explicit ethical agenda: environmental responsibility, gender equality, recognition of the role of women in art, protection of cultural minorities and respect for diverse identities. These principles are not mere declarations but guide curatorial, educational and selection choices.

Watercolor as a Language of the Present

Why today? Why precisely now? Because watercolor responds with almost philosophical precision to the demands of our time: immediacy, fragility, memory, error, stratification, control of the unpredictable. It does not allow easy corrections. It demands presence. It makes the process visible as much as the result.

In a digital era that tends toward dematerialization, watercolor offers the opposite: matter, slowness, breath. It does not engage with technology through imitation but through contrast. And it is precisely in this tension that its contemporaneity emerges.

Far from nostalgia, what can be perceived is a conscious and critical Renaissance. New narratives linked to inner landscape, identity, sustainability and memory now run through the medium. Non-conventional formats are emerging, along with dialogues with installation, expanded drawing and performative practices. Watercolor no longer illustrates: it questions.

Excellence as a Civic Act

From its foundation, the mission has been clear: to restore watercolor to its full artistic dignity. For decades relegated to a preparatory technique, it now asserts itself as a conceptual language capable of interpreting contemporary complexity.

«Transforming instability, error and transparency into form, thought and vision.»

The Academy promotes a form of education based on dialogue with international masters and on the development of a personal voice, avoiding rigid or purely technical models. Criteria of excellence include:

• Technical quality in the service of thought

• Study

• Coherence of research

• Expressive maturity

Through museum exhibitions, academic publications, international juries and dialogue with the curatorial and collecting worlds, the Academy actively contributes to repositioning watercolor within the contemporary art system.

Beyond Nostalgia: A Conscious Renaissance

Are we facing a global renaissance of watercolor? According to Tiziana Tagliabue, yes — but not as a romantic return. It is a critical and mature Renaissance.

In a digital era marked by dematerialization and speed, watercolor offers presence, slowness and physical experience. It does not compete with technology: it engages through contrast. In the face of visual saturation it proposes essentiality. In the face of noise, it whispers and invites reflection.

In the face of superficiality it deepens. Like other fields of contemporary art, watercolor today is not an isolated discipline but engages with other expressive forms, generating new narratives linked to memory, inner landscape, identity and sustainability, as well as non-conventional formats and hybrid practices.

Cultural Construction

The International Watercolor Academy and the Vivarium Novum Academy do not aspire simply to organize events or bring artists together. They aim to leave a cultural paradigm: watercolor recognized as a high-level artistic language, capable of telling our time and uniting cultures through quality and thought.

In an accelerated world, watercolor opens a space for slowness. In a culture of simplification, it restores complexity. In an age of fragility, it transforms transparency into strength. And perhaps it is precisely here that its most radical contemporaneity resides: in reminding us that art — like water — does not impose its form, but always finds its way.