"...water so clear the rocks at the foot of the cliffs looked like clumps of turquoise flowers growing on the sea bed."
from The Sea Garden
The modern French painter Olivier Boissinot captures that turquoise by the shore, the brightness and heat of the sea in the South of France in his Calanque de Port Pin, above. A native of Provence, he is a master of strong colour and atmosphere. I love the way he composes a scene so cleverly, then seems to dive straight in with no-holds-barred vibrancy.
I've used his brilliant pictures from the start of this blog, to illustrate elements of The Lantern, and I'm only sorry I can't get to his latest exhibition at the Salle Cézanne in Meyreuil, near Aix-en-Provence. It's on now until February 7, and if anyone is there this week, it will be well worth seeing.
An if that's an impossibility, but you'd like to brighten your day, take a look at this: an online notebook of Olivier Boissinot's seascapes.
