Courtyard Sycamore

   oil on panel  

"The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding." 

 Claude Monet

"Paint the essential character of things. 

When you do a thing with your whole soul and 

everything that is noble within you, you will 

always find that essence."

Camille Pissaro

This was done later on an afternoon and late in the week. My arthritic back pain was kicking in pretty good and so I parked my backpack kit and sat on the steps there in the courtyard at la Madelene. The courtyard is dominated by a beautiful, big sycamore tree that had been radically pruned back. These are the trees that line the main streets of all the small villages all through that part of the world and when they are pruned back like this one, they appear to be huge, complex sculptural forms. This tree had been on my mind all week - how to paint the big monster - what was its essential character?  Then I found myself sitting and looking, right up under that tree, and I determined to paint it, then and there. I set up and went to work simply engrossed with the light and shadow defining the smooth large trunks and branches, as they split and diverged near the center of the tree. The complex structure suddenly became a simple problem in shadow and light, form and the space cut up by that form. In 30 minutes I had it - I stopped. I could do no more to advance the idea of the essence of that big tree. Someone had been watching me and asked how I could have done it. My reply has to be, "by deciding to discover the simple, essential character of the tree.