David and I have been ensconced in a rainy, grey Les Bassacs, trying to get the programme together for 2011. Today after 3 days of heavy rain, when the clouds lifted and the sun came out, we were surprised to find that suddenly the valley has taken on an autumnal feel. Walking through the fields between us and St Saturnin les Apt, David took these photos.
Successive layers of cherry, plum and vines against the green of the pines and holm-oak have clothed the Luberon in shocking reds, purples and yellows.
”Yesterday evening I was working on a slightly rising woodland slope covered with dry and mouldering beech leaves. The ground was light and dark reddish brown, emphasized by the weaker and stronger shadows of trees casting half-obliterated stripes across it. The problem, and I found it a very difficult one, was to get the depth of colour, the enormous power and solidity of that ground -- and yet it was only while painting it that I noticed how much light there was still in the dusk -- to retain the light as well as the glow, and depth of that rich colour, for there is no carpet imaginable as splendid as that deep brownish-red in the glow of an autumn evening sun, however toned down by the trees.”
Vincent van Gogh
Letter to Theo van Gogh, 3 September 1882
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