Le Chateau de Medan FWN 149 1880 59 cm x 72
There is something so rich and so full in these colours that is beyond words, or rather pre-dates words. They intimate experiences we had before words existed. Their richness awakens for me not just something in our deepest selves but something of the geology of our earth. Lapis lazuli from the mountains of Afghanistan for ultramarine; Sindoor of India and cinnabar from China for vermillion; Ochre of iron, clay and sand, the color of our earth; green photosynthesis of plants and trees. Somewhere deep within us there is a remembering of what we had forgotten: of a time when we humans first began to significantly interact with the ground of our being, mother earth.
Please receive a blessing poem from John O’Donohue:
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.
Zola was able to buy a house in Medan in 1879: not the Chateau, here with the blue roof, but actually just out of the painting to the right. He would gradually re-fit it and extend it; but was keen right from the start to invite friends and associates to share his home and conversation, ideas and passions. Zola still wanted to change the world, as he and Cezanne had agreed they would do, when they were boyz2men. Cezanne eventually responded and was hoping to visit in the middle of July; but Zola’s house was already full. Undeterred, Cezanne tried to find accommodation in the small village nearby; but as it was the July 14 celebrations, everywhere was full. Eventually, he found a small place to stay, and sent Zola a note to check if it was ok for him to borrow Zola’s little rowing boat, Nana, for the few days of his visit. So he set himself up, day after day, quite content, and painted this painting from Nana, moored in the middle of the river.
And what a lovely job he’s done too. It’s one of my favourites (how many favourites can I have?) I like to approach a painting in a bit of a ceremonious way; I might even say with a touch of reverence. First I bring myself and the painting together: me and how I am; and the painting, and how it is. And then I try to just sit with the painting, trying not to think or analyse; but just to be in each other’s presence. If I get distracted, and notice something, then I simply accept it with thanks and return to quiet presence. For this painting, our presence together is one of the smile of the colours of our earth-home.
When it feels right, I will move on to noticing how the painting is put together. The immediacy of the parallel planes is here what awakens my joy – I see the flowing water, the clay sand of the bank, the dance formations of the sapling trees, the intermingling of the angular roofs, the green band of shimmering leaves, and the blue cloudy sky. And I think – hey, I have a feast awaiting, each plane to explore. I look at the horizontal brushstrokes of the water, rippling towards me; and I see how the bank lifts up away from the river, with diagonal, if not nearly vertical strokes and the fluffy bushes dangling in mid-air above the cool of the water. And I smile, as I climb the bank and go among trees. I go in between the two most prominent saplings in the centre; and my gaze gets drawn down through the avenue between the houses; those on the right facing square on, and those on the left at a diagonal so as to invite me in. But I wait and come back between the two saplings: I want to have a look at the line of trees before moving on. There’s four tall trees on the right that reach to the top of the sky: one at the far right of the painting and a second some way in to allow a full view of the chateau, gorgeous in blue, yellow and red (which, surrounded by the yellow, turns into orange). Then two tall trees standing close behind two shorter trees reaching for the horizon, the four standing to attention next to the chateau. Then the next trees form an arch over a small cottage, with the roofs of the buildings behind forming a sequenced climb up the hill, that give a sense of an ascent.
Now for the left-hand side: counterposed to the ascending buildings on the right, the four immediate cottages on the middle left stacked as they are like dominoes give a sense of depth. I go through the four saplings on the left and look over another bank of earth beyond which rise the village buildings with towers, which I understand as the centre of rural industry, maybe granary and winery.
I return to the centre, as if standing among the trees; again, I am drawn towards the cottage in between the two central saplings, with the face of the house turned towards me – not full face, like those on the right, but more towards me than those on the left. And I wonder, how are left and right-hand side brought into harmony as one?
The opening on the first floor of the central cottage – maybe a door and hoist, as it seems too big for a window – is at the very centre of the painting; adjacent on the right is a repeated opening in the sloping roof of the nearest building to us, and another at far left underneath one of the turrets, and a half opening at right, underneath the shutters of the chateau. These knit the vertical lines of the painting together.
But I must step back into the boat to find the harmony of the whole. Now I notice that intersecting the five horizontal planes that I’ve looked at, there are five vertical avenues, embraced in the arc of the movement starting from the rural buildings on the left, up and along the long orangey fluff of a cloud, over the top of the village behind the saplings, down over the little green bush on the horizon, gliding over the green field, the blue roof of the chateau, the green shrubs and the ochre sand of the riverbank, and back to Nana.
And there I recline, my journey complete but not finished, water gently lapping, hazy sunshine, and colours shimmering
and I pray
We are so fortunate to have lived
in this time, in this place, on this earth;
for twelve thousand years
humanity has enjoyed
an ecological and biodiverse earth
that has been in the main
balanced
and in harmony
with our survival
and our thriving.
May this painting of Medan by Paul Cezanne,
now in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, UK,
help inspire the COP26 countries to commit to maintain that balance.
(postponed till 2021)