It is true that he begins with great advantage of intimate empathy with a subject worthy of his love . The island of Cyprus has a history of nine millenia . Many conquerors have left their footprints in its soil , monuments of ancient splendour , the legacies of all the principal cultures of Europe and of the Middle East . For all diversity of its past history the island retains a strong flavour of its own . In any museum you choose to visit it is impossible not to single out , at first glance , the artefacts which derive their origin from Cyprus . If this is true , and it most strikingly is , of ceramics or sculpture it is true also of Gothic cathedrals . The architecture of the two surviving examples , at Nicosia and Famagusta , is correct by Gothic standards , inspired by models from France and the Rhineland ; but no one could think of them as anything but Cypriot as they lift their spires and pinnacles into the clean blue Levantine sky , surrounded by palm trees .

It is this unique civilization that is the theme of Reno Wideson's art . His landscapes , I must agree , are subtle and seductive , for Cyprus with its mountains and cliffs and seashores offers plenty of opportunities , but his lens takes on a more lyrical sensitivity when it records the buildings , especially rural buildings and in particular the faces of the peasants . The life of the countryside is his favourite subject . It has altered little down the centuries . The artists who modelled terra cotta figurines , grouped to show typical farming scenes , brought the same freshness of vision to their surroundings as does the eye that looks through Reno Wideson's viewfinder. Here is the real Cyprus , lovingly and accurately portrayed .