Provence, the Sea and the Soil

“Luxe, Calme et Volupté” – the title of a 1904 oil painting by Matisse hearkens back to an 1857 poem by Baudelaire which declaims the joys of a Provence thinly disguised as an Earthly Paradise. English can only approximate the French, “pleasure, peace, and opulence,” but to know this land well and truly, not only the sweet and delightful corners, but also the harsher and even savage landscapes, you must first do as Gabriele Reina has done over the years: withstand the whiplash of the Mistral wind, tramp its breadth and length on foot or crisscross it by bicycle, follow in the footsteps of Hannibal, or sit in the shade of the mighty summit of Monviso, listening to the notes of the hurdy-gurdy, an instrument favored in the popular imagination by blind troubadours. Reina’s love for Provence shines forth in these pages – accompanied by an altarpiece by a fifteenth-century artist from Avignon, Nicolas Froment. Let the two of them – author and artist – guide you to a truly unexplored Provence.