“Reve du Perigord”
10″x 8″
Pencil and watercolor
2009
Perigord is the predominately rural (there’s only one real town, although there are a thousand villages) region in Southwestern France where Herve and I took our long vacation each June. It was at the end of the trail of Great Aunts and godmothers we would drop in on as we made our way down from Tours and his parents’ oversubscribed (as in, always BUSY) household.
The region’s warrantedly famous for its foie gras, maigret du canard, and all things goose/duck related. As the former center of the 100 Year’s War, it has more ruined castles than you can shake a stick at. The nearest thing to a “downside” is, really, more of an oddity; the region became quite popular, starting in the 1960’s, among the prosperous, retiring, upper-middle class of the English. Consequently there are several quite lovely villages where, if you go to market-day, you’re far more likely to hear BBC-accented English than you are to hear French.
It remains a place where people go to stay, rather than visit, so there are relatively few tourists of the yawping kind (unlike, say, Provence). On the whole, it’s very peaceful, quite lovely, slow-paced, and devoid of flashy attractions. We loved it.
This painting was for Mme. Yvonne Chancellier, whom I liked very much. She was Herve’s great-aunt…the last member of her WW2 generation.