This an unusual view of the Notre Dame des Cyprès Chapel just outside of Fayence on the valley floor off the road to Seillans. This lovely little chapel was the subject of several of my mother’s landscapes but mostly from a much closer viewpoint. Here we see the chapel as virtually the only man made object in this sweep of the countryside that stretches from the rough track in the foreground across the fields of mustard to the forest covered foothills and the beginnings of the Alps behind. This was painted in the autumn in 1972 while my mother was “between” fixed addresses and waiting to move into her flat in the village of Fayence which is located just behind the location where this is painted from. The chapel lives up to its name by being surrounded by the tall thin picturesque Cypress trees. This was one of three similar sized landscape panels that she was working on almost simultaneously. She was calling them “panels” due to their narrow aspect and portrait orientation.

It was views like this that encouraged my mother to stay in France and not move to America, a serious consideration at this time, see the painting the My Dilemma for details.

Diary Entries