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James Bland wins Winsor & Newton Oil Painters Awards 2013

Our congratulations go to James Bland, teaching for the first time at Les bassacs in September 2014, who has won the Winsor & Newton Oil Painters Awards 2013 for under 35's with his atmospheric painting "Reclining Figure, Evening".

It will be exhibited at the Mall Galleries in the Royal Institute of Oil Painters Annual Exhibition 2013.

Les Bassacs map cushion

Jane Revitt, artist and designer who regularly comes to Les Bassacs, has produced this beautiful cushion of the area.

 

She has used a map from 1903, first published in La Grande Encyclopédie.  It is easy to see where Les Bassacs is in relation to the artful shading which denotes the relief in the landscape and lends it its distinct graphic feel.  Jane's wonderful cushion can be bought from her website here

The towns and villages that are picked out reflect the shift in population that has taken place since 1903, with Croagnes being given a prominence that it wouldn't now have as its population has dwindled to 3 or 4 permanent residents.  This fluctuation in population is the same for many of the hameaux shown on the cushion.

Croagnes serves as a good illustration of this process.  It seems to have been continuously inhabited from roman times when it had a substantial villa, it was noted as a community of some standing in 997, and by 1122 had a cleric and a group of inhabitants regularly attending church services.  In 1293 there were 10 families living there when they were granted the right to a communal bake house to cook their bread. By 1396, following the hundred years war,  the place was ruined and abandoned, not to be repopulated until 17th century when it reached its zenith comprising a community of 70 families. The fact that it had a church in 1903 probably merits its appearance on the map.  Les Bassacs would have undergone a similar evolution.

Croagnes from Les Bassacs

part of the cross in the centre of Croagnes

Programme 2014

 The programme for 2014 is ready, a little delayed after two of our tutors, who shall remain nameless, went AWOL at a crucial moment!  You can see what is on offer by clicking on Arts in Provence 2014 brochure

End of season

 

Since the end of the season we have been in Antibes, Berlin and England.  Planning for 2014 is well underway with a few loose ends to tie up before we can confirm the dates.  

October has been a warm and sunny month and one of our neighbours commented the other day that we could still be running courses, the weather has been so stunning.  The warmth has meant that the garden needs watering and today the Rosa Banksiae decided to have another go at flowering. It has put forth a clutch of rosebuds and an open bloom, its first since May!

We appreciate a chance to get out and explore the valley before the winter sets in and we are always looking for new outcrops of ocher which might serve as painting spots. This abandoned quarry near Roussillon provided us with some spectacular shapes and colour juxtapositions.

As well as some very beautiful mushrooms lurking in the soft sandy soil.

Early morning view from the terrace

 

A cloudy start to the day was enlivened by the rising sun making Roussillon glow, producing this rather startling effect to entertain us over breakfast.

Snails!

The massing of millions of tiny white snails has long been a feature of the Provencal summer, with every post or fence by mid July being festooned with these little creatures.  This species of snail Cernuella is very common in Provence and have adapted to the summer heat by undergoing aestivation a dormant state which prevents them from drying out in the hot weather.  The snails are edible and feature in a traditional Provencal soup.  I can't see us serving them any time soon for supper at Les Bassacs though!

Lavender Cutting

We are back from our short break in August and there is a definite feel of late summer in the air.  Until 3 weeks ago David was painting until 9.45 pm, but now dusk is on us almost an hour earlier.  We are however rewarded with beautiful warm, still evenings when the countryside is awash with deep greens and inky black shadows.

The lavender was harvested weeks ago and has been left to dry where it was cut; little stooks litter the fields.

 

When we first came here all the lavender was cut by hand using small sickles but now it is a rare sight.  This field between Les Bassacs and Les Cordiers has been cut in the traditional way. The crop is small and not large enough to warrant the use of a harvester.  Once dried these stooks were pitched into a trailer.

 and taken to be processed at the distillery at Castellet which is run by this lone and ancient distiller!

Hot colour and thunder clouds

We have hot, hot weather here as has most of Europe. While we expect it at this time of year, what we are not used to are the daily evening thunder clouds and occasional downpours that they bring. 

The upside of these evening showers is that the countryside is blooming and the colours are beautifully fresh. 

 

Albert Camus at Lourmarin

Occasionally we venture south of the Luberon to Lourmarin for a day's painting and picnic in the grounds of the beautiful renaissance chateau.

Albert Camus had a long association with Lourmarin and he is buried in the town's cemetery. David took a break from painting and photographed his grave.

Camus was friends with the poet Renee Char and initially looked for a house near him in L'Isle sur la Sorgue, but eventually bought a house in Lourmarin using his prize money from the Nobel Prize for literature which he won in 1957.  Camus was captivated by the beauty of the Luberon hills which dominate the northern view from the village.

He wrote in his diaries of  'The first star over the Luberon, the enormous silence, the cypresses' describing the Luberon as ' this solemn and austere land in spite of its overwhelming beauty'. For him living in Lourmarin was  'un halte de paix dans la voyage de la vie'. The view across the plain to the valley of the Aigebrun reminded him of the plain of Mitidja in Algeria where he grew up.

Camus died in a car crash just south of Paris at the age of 46 and was buried in Lourmarin. In 2009 President Sarkozy put forward plans to rebury him in the Pantheon in Paris.  His son objected and so for the moment his remains stay at Lourmarin.

Pont Julien

artist crosses ancient bridge

During Paul Thomas's week the group painted the Pont Julien just below Bonnieux.   The bridge, which was open to traffic until 2005, was built in 3 BC, it has had over 2000 years of continuous use!  It is both sturdy and beautiful.  The river Calavon which runs beneath it is at this time of year a pleasant trickle, but in times of flood it becomes a raging torrent.  The Romans who built the bridge using local stone,  allowed for the river's seasonal variation and wisely gave it high arches and 'dégueuloirs', additional arched openings through which the flood water could freely flow.

It is the last remaining intact bridge on the Via Domitia the Roman road which linked Italy with Hispania. 

Orchids

Pat Johns,  who is here painting this week,  has an eye for spotting orchids and finds them wherever we go.  This morning she and Stephen (whom I should credit for the pictures) went out walking on a circuit around Les Bassacs rather than going to the market at L'Isle sur la Sorgue.  Tucked in amongst the abundance of wild flowers in the woods and meadows at the moment, they found two beautiful and delicate orchid varieties, both with self-explanatory names!

Bee Orchid

Pyramidal Orchid

David Caldwell's week

David Caldwell is new to Les Bassacs this year.  He had a group of students who were serious about their work but who also knew the ropes, and despite the weather being unsettled, everyone had a very good and productive week's painting. 

David led the way showing a fierce resilience in the face of the mistral, sporting his shorts in all temperatures and all weathers!

The one wet afternoon we had, meant that he had the chance to teach an excellent session on portrait painting in the studio.

David Caldwell's easel and portrait of Alan

David's week

Despite the stormy start, the week has settled down to nice fresh weather. The magnificent bright sunshine emphasises the new foliage and the hedgerows full of flowers.  The big advantage of this type of weather is that you can happily sit all day in the sun without getting hot.  Later on in the summer, painting views are to some extent determined by the search for a shady patch from which to work.  Yesterday the morning was spent in Villars, and on the way back we stopped to wonder at this field bursting with colour.

In the afternoon David took the group out the back of Les Bassacs to the olive grove that gives views south onto the Luberon hills.

David hard at work

Today a very quiet and peaceful Menerbes was the venue for a successful morning painting.

Rainbows and dark sunshine

Yesterday was the rainiest summer Saturday we have ever had in all the years we have been here.  It poured all day which meant that the trip to Apt market was cancelled and we had the heating on.  Discussing this with Mathilde, our cleaner, she remarked that there is an old provencal saying "never a Saturday goes by without a ray of sunshine", but I doubted it was going to be true for this particular Saturday. However, by 7.30 in the evening the cloud started to lift over the Rhone valley.

Then suddenly through the rain we had this dark dramatic sunshine and two successive rainbows, just beautiful.

Balthazar

For the last three weeks Les Bassacs has been unusually bucolic.  We have had 6 rams and an enormous Billie goat called Balthazar lodged in the village.  Balthazar sports a bell around his neck identical to the bell we use for announcing supper, and has occasionally confused us all by ringing it around the village on one of his escapades.  He is able to jump or climb the retaining walls of his pen and, being a sociable animal, has got into the habit of looking for company in our ruelle.  He is quite amenable and docile and will be lead by the collar back up the lane to rejoin the rams.

a chastened Balthazar being led home by Isabelle

Balthazar demonstrating his climbing abilities

Everything's ready

Everything's ready, now we just need some people to fill the chairs!

Spring at last

We have now enjoyed a few days of sustained warmth and the affect on the countryside was immediate.

When we have a spring like this, all the blossom comes out simultaneously and from afar, the mass of flowers makes it look as if the valley is coated in a fine sprinkling of snow.

Bat fatality

We are busy getting the houses ready for the start of the season in May.  This is an annual task which sees us in work clothes and paint-spattered for a good eight weeks.  All the nooks and crannies of accumulated junk have to be cleared.  The cave under the house is a great storage place, it keeps an even temperature during the year and was formerly where the wine was stored.  The huge barrels which are still there, are now acting as housing for David's wood scraps.  For twenty years we have had a colony of Pipistrellus pipistrellus hanging from its vaulted ceiling.  All summer long they fly in and out of the cave entrance in the courtyard, wheeling round in the warm summer air catching insects on the wing.  We have had many broods of young but this year our first fatality!

I found his dessicated body on the stone floor where I mistook him for a dead leaf.  He weighs 1 gram! David dusted him off and he has been added to our collection of dead beetles and tiny bird skeletons that lives in David's studio.

winter again

On Saturday we set off to have a light lunch with some friends near Mont Ventoux.  The route takes us past the magnificent Abbey de Sénanque, here clothed in its sombre winter hues, the surrounding lavender like cornrows.

peering over the edge of the precipice

In the dip of the valley the cold hung to the building like a mist.

  

Then through the Gorge de la Sénancole which was punctuated by frozen streams and icicles,

into this . . . the winter just won't go away!

Monty Don's French Gardens

Monty Don's French Gardens last week featured le jardin de la Louve at Bonnieux.  I did not see it myself but Janet Dickson, a les Bassacs regular and the instigator of our expedition to the garden last September, alerted me to Monty's enthusiastic visit in last week's programme about Artistic Gardens.  If you missed it, you can still see it on BBC iplayer.

Nicolas de Staël in the Vaucluse

The painter Nicolas de Staël arrived in the Vaucluse in the summer of 1953. He rented an old silk barn from a local family at Lagnes, just below Gordes.  In 1951 he had met and become close friends with the poet Renee Char who lived at L'isle sur la Sorgue, and Char encouraged him to come to the area to paint.  De Staël was immediately taken by the light, colour and form of the valley and wrote to a friend "the infinite basin of the Vaucluse is clothed by good rocks, white marble  and a sea of green composed of three or four different woods, its amazing, the richness of this countryside".  

paysage de Vaucluse no 2 1953

paysage de Vaucluse no 3 1953

De Staël, an original and vital painter, had spent the post-war years experimenting with questions of space and colour.  He was embarking on a very productive and innovative period of his career.  He did not regard himself as an abstract painter, but rather saw himself as part of the tradition of naturalistic painters such as Constable, Corot and Courbet, whose work he admired.  He wrote,  "I do not ‘objectify’ anything that I see. I do not paint before seeing. I am not looking for anything other than painting ‘visible’ by everyone." He attempted to express his sensations of space and light by creating successive layers of coloured texture. "I need to feel life in front of me and to capture it completely as it enters my eyes and skin,"

In November 1953 he bought a beautiful chateau at Menerbes.  After a life-time of retched poverty he had begun to have some critical acclaim, particularly in America, and this enabled him to buy his family a home.

views of Menerbes 1954

In 1953 he had seen the first exhibition of Matisse's cut-outs which had a great influence on his work. He gradually simplified his method of composition until with four or five broad sweeps of colour he was able to evoke the constituant elements of a landscape. He drew and painted incessantly filling the three enormous white studios in the chateau with fresh paintings.

De Staël became friends with the english art critic and historian Douglas Cooper who lived nearby at Uzes.  Cooper, friend also to Picasso, had a substantial collection of cubist paintings which he often went to study. Some of de Staël's most powerful and dramatic paintings of this period are of the journey between Menerbes and Uzes.  He was a great draughtsman and would often stop on the journey to note down compositions for paintings to be worked up later in the studio.

series Route d'Uzes 1954

Of this work he wrote, "One never paints what one sees or thinks one sees; rather one records, with a thousand vibrations, the shock one has received, or will receive, be it the same or different"

One year after painting this series, Nicolas de Staël jumped to his death from the terrace of his studio which faced the sea at Antibes.  He was only 41 years old and in a decade of intense painting he had produced over 700 canvases.   On de Staël's death Cooper described his friend as "the truest, the most considerable and the most innately gifted painter who has appeared on the scene in Europe or elsewhere during the last 25 years." 

Ciel et Mer 1955