THE ROCK FROM MT. ST. VICTOIRE
 
This looked like a piece of very ordinary grey rock – slightly stained on one side with some type of sediment hewn from a larger morass of rock – something thrown up in space; a rocky outcrop poised alone in some featureless landscape.

I only remember the rock from those landscapes of Cezanne – redolent of a hot arid place, Provence and the tiny houses of a French village.

I have a vague recollection of the picture, or were there several – remember the vivid greens, mixed blues and browns of earth and dust, the dry Mediterranean scrub, suggestion of fields and an aquaduct; scent of land that is different from the cool Maritime weather in the north.

I digress – the thoughts wander on. I’ve never been to the south of France but somehow an object that is part of a landscape evokes a million thoughts and fantasies. [next]

 

 
A mountain can never be unmade; it was painted a century ago; that horizon of hot, blue cloudless sky and parched earth inspired great painters. Imagine coming out into the heat of a summer morning and setting up your easel, painting all day without interruption, colours of the landscape only changing as the day moves from early morning to mid-day to late afternoon. Then there are the hot sweet scents of sunset, suggestion of a faint breeze to cool the landscape. The mountain does not change – only a streak of light paints the grey flanks, a drift of cloud or is it only the first suggestion of summer dark?

Then the crickets populate the terraces; it must be long past the time to finish work.   [next]

 
 
 
 
 


 

The mountain will be there tomorrow. The rocks are timeless – thrown together and fashioned through the heaving shudderings of the earth millennia ago. But time and weather have softened the surfaces and hewn down the rock – the surfaces are smooth – the projections weathered and criss-crossed by a few traces of colour.

The painter packed up his easel long ago; he painted the landscape he saw in the colours he knew and produced a masterpiece of great value. The mountain did not change – only a few years passed, the comings and goings of the seasons, hot days and cool nights. Then came the tramp of visitors and climbers. Tourists thronged the little landscape of a quiet village producing a new infrastructure of commerce and industry.

Many people marvelled at the everlasting quality of the stones, sniffed the hues of that dry Mediterranean climate that is peculiar to itself, picnicked on the lower slopes of the mountains and carefully gathered up their rubbish to take home. There must be something special about a piece of rock from Cezanne’s mountain some secret or some special property that marks it apart from the commonplace million rocks of other mountains.    [TOP]
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