The Wave

Life is slowly getting back to something like normality. Maybe it’s just I’ve got some curried meatballs, an old favourite, plopping away ready for dinner tonight. Maybe, too, it was popping over to Snatchems yesterday. We watched over a hundred Canada geese on the estuary. As some fed, their long necks disappeared into the waters. The next thing was they overbalanced, ending up doing a somersault in the river landing up on their backs. We couldn’t help laughing.

I thought today I would say something about our holiday. There are two things that particularly stick out for me, so here comes number one.

One day we went over to the Centre d’Art Sébastien in Saint Cyr sur Mer. Sébastien (1909-1990) is not an artist I’ve come across before. I gather from the leaflet we were given he was a friend of Picasso, Cocteau & André Gide.

 

Centre d'Art Sebastien

This small gallery, just four rooms, had one room devoted to the works of Sébastien himself. The image that particularly stays in my mind was “La Vague” (The Wave). It was a sculpture in a pinkish beige stone. It depicted a swirling shape, a sea wave. In the midst was a beautiful woman’s face, arms swirling with the wave. Her left arm pulled over a hood of water. In her right arm she cradled & protected a fish. The whole image was truly beautiful. It haunts me still.

Gide described Sébastien’s work as mystico-sensual. There certainly was sensuality about this sculpture. The urge to stroke the sculpture was almost overwhelming. The woman was presumably some sort of mermaid or sea nymph.

Other examples of his sculpture had similar sensuality. On one wall there was an exploration of the number 8, the way the lines curve & cross over to form the figure.

The rest of the gallery was devoted to the temporary exhibition entitled “Les Voiles de la Mediterranée” (The sails of the Mediterranean). One room was essentially devoted to the Corderie de Toulon (17th century rope making factory in Toulon) & a bit of naval history of the time. Since we had seen a similar exhibition at the Corderie Royale at Rochefort in the Charente some years ago we didn’t stay long in this room.

The second room was a selection of paintings by various artists & from various times, on the theme of the French Mediterranean coast. Some pictures were impressive. I remember especially seeing the orange light streaming out behind the sail of one fishing boat. And another huge painting of fishermen bringing in the nets full of tuna.

The last room was devoted to Vincent Courdouan (1810-1893), again an artist I hadn’t knowingly encountered before. Most of his works – all those shown here – were on the subject of the life & scenery around Toulon, where he was born & where he became the curator of the Musée de Toulon in 1852. He clearly had good technique. His watercolours glowed. A picture of 19^th century Provence emerged. It is so different from today. Small fishing villages are now overflowing with tourists, shooting up modern hotels. It clearly was a backwater area in those days.

So that is my first image of Provence from this holiday. I’ll write another, another day.