When in Rome . . .

The main idea of the U.S. Government's Fulbright scholarships is to help young Americans learn abroad what they can not quite learn at home. In Rome last week, eleven Fulbright art scholars (average age: 30) held a joint show that chiefly showed how eagerly they are pursuing the big idea.

To David Shapiro of Manhattan, the bright Italian sun seemed on fire; he was painting his skies a burning yellow. Sculptor Robert Becker of Far Rockaway, N.Y. was working in black screen, exhibited an abstraction that looked rather like a woman's fancy hat. Others had turned to Italy's fawn-colored countryside, painting delicately tinted landscapes and soft, expressionistic pictures of peasants and village priests. A favorite of the show: New Mexican Edward Chavez's flowing study of three white nuns' bonnets set against an abstract Florentine background.

For the most part, Rome enjoyed the show, but some viewers thought that possibly one or two of the Americans had let Italy influence them too strongly. Said Modernist Afro Basaldella of a canvas showing a tumbled staircase lined with allegorical figures: "This nostalgia for the classical mode Italiana . . . may be excusable in Americans, but in Italians it would be unforgivable."

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