The Tree

To paint a tree is to enter into the story of patience.

Like us, it gradually emerged from a seed. A seed that contains a memory. A discreet and invisible memory. Like us, it will awaken to the great succession of days and nights.
To paint a tree is to capture its slightest variations, its sudden changes of direction, sometimes in its growth spurt, sometimes in the emergence of its intertwining branches.
The richness and variety of its species are immense. We will need to be observant to grasp the form, the silhouette, the mass of its trunk, down to the extreme delicacy of its branches and foliage. "The tree is a person," my professor in China used to say. Let us learn to capture not only its particular forms, but also its intimate character, imbued with all its life force.