Landscape at La Ciotat, 1907 | George Braque

This beautiful, fanciful landscape by George Braque is an example of Fauvism with bright colors in unique places.  George Braque is most known for developing Cubism with Picasso but his landscapes are so worth viewing. One might see in this work dusk on a fall day with trees of colors dramatic beyond the chlorophyll explanation. One might see a day of bright wellbeing with colors representing just that.

Unfortunately, as I write this reflection, wildfires are ravaging California and our Colorado and one might see that terrible heat in this painting. It seems somehow to go along with the recent news footage of roaring flames that turn the trees red and take the blue from the sky. It seems to represent another reckoning we must face in times such as these.

Our planet, that blue marble seen from space, is becoming the colors we name “warm colors” in elementary school art classes. The red, orange and yellow of our fevered planet where people must be rescued from campgrounds by helicopter and panicked families must drive for their fragile lives to escape the flames are screaming and sighing about the damage greed has caused. The landscapes and those who love them have been no match for those who claimed their dominion with profit and bottom lines trumping beauty and preservation so often when this choice was given. In these times, we are left to comprehend different colors in places we truly did not believe would be anything but green. This is what climate change looks like.

And now we pray.  We pray for the brave firefighters who are trying to save forests and homes and us. They drive and walk and fly into the inferno again and again for us. We pray for their safety and their success. We give thanks for their skill, their stamina and their courage. God be with them. God be with them. Amen.

In hope and faith,

Sandy Prouty