

Tree silhouetted against a terraced hillside in Liguria

The watercolour in green washes was painted in Prati Piani as was the ‘Two children flying kites by the oak tree at Prati Piani in the Ligurian Riviera’. In the background, faintly seen are the stepped terraces cut out of the hills. Here for two and a half thousand years Celts and then Ligurians have survived by cultivating the olive tree. It was until recent times a harsh and poor territory; the only economic escape was to become a mariner sailing out of Marseilles or Genoa, a life described by the Ligurian writer Francesco Biamonti. Another profession, given the closeness of the border, was as a passeur smuggling economic or political refugees in to France. The artist, given the tree’s more abundant foliage probably painted it earlier in the summer.
