Some summers stay with you as a colour. Bay and Bloom is eight oil paintings of one Mediterranean summer, held in a single blue: four look out at a rocky bay — the sea from under the pines, a red cliff dropping into the water, a small island at noon, a village of terracotta roofs above the sea — and four look in, at blue flowers standing on a terrace table with that same sea behind them: irises, agapanthus, hydrangeas, cornflowers.

The eight share one palette and one hand: cobalt and lapis for the sea and the petals, ultramarine for the shadows, warm ochre, terracotta and rust for rocks, roofs, jugs and earth, chalk white for the sky and the tablecloths. Green stays scarce and dark, kept for a few pine needles and leaves. There are no people, no boats with names, no signs, and not a single letter anywhere in the paint.

The need — the decorator’s eye

The walls of this season are turning pale green: sage, celery, soft mineral tones, matte limewash and clay paints. A green wall does not want more green. It wants warmth and a clear blue — rust and terracotta to heat it, cobalt to give it depth. That is the whole logic of this palette, and it works just as well on a warm white or an oatmeal wall.

The format is horizontal, sized for the places where a single picture carries a room: above a sofa, a sideboard, a bed or a long dining table, at 120 × 80 or 150 × 100 cm. Two of the eight are shown leaning on a console or a sideboard rather than hung, because a painting that rests on furniture can move from the hall to the dining room as the year goes on.

The production — the art director’s vision

Much of what hangs on walls this autumn is soft: haze, blur, light dissolving into light. This collection is the counterpoint. It follows the way of building a landscape that came after Impressionism, in the line of Cézanne: nature made of facets and planes, laid down in small parallel patches of paint, each patch a distinct decision of colour. A rock is a set of warm planes turning in the light. The sea is a mosaic of blues. A jug is a cylinder and a cloth is a landscape of folds.

The paint is thick and matte, with the canvas showing through in a few small gaps and a thin dark-blue line sometimes redrawing a contour. Nothing is copied from any existing painting; what the collection borrows is a method, and a light — the clear southern daylight that puts the shadows in blue. Seen from across the room, the eight read as calm, solid and bright. Seen close, they are full of small strokes you can follow with the eye.

The sale — the gallerist’s word

These are paintings bought for the pleasure of looking at them every day, not as a calculation. One alone above a sofa brings a whole summer into a room in November. Two make a natural pair: a view and a bouquet — The Red Cliff beside Cornflowers and the White Cloth, where the same cliff appears beyond the terrace. Four bouquets in a row along a dining room wall make a quiet frieze of blue; the four views of the bay do the same in a long hall.

Each work is printed on 4 mm acrylic glass, backed with 3 mm Dibond. The lacquered face gives the cobalt real depth. In a room of matte walls, linen and wood, it is the one glossy surface, and it should be. As a gift for the end of the year, a blue that does not date.

The eight works

The Bay from the Pines — a wide cobalt bay seen from a headland, two umbrella pines, faceted ochre rocks, a far blue mountain.
The Red Cliff — a tall rust cliff built of planes, plunging into a lapis sea above a strip of ochre beach.
The Island at Noon — a rocky island with one small ochre house, floating in a sea of blue facets.
The Rooftops above the Sea — terracotta roofs stacked like cubes down a hillside, one dark pine, the bay beyond.
Irises in the Ochre Jug — deep cobalt irises in a squat clay jug on a white cloth, the sea as a band behind.
Agapanthus on the Terrace — two round heads of lapis agapanthus in a terracotta pot on a stone wall above the bay.
Hydrangeas and Lemons — a dome of blue hydrangea in a white stoneware pitcher, three lemons on a rust cloth.
Cornflowers and the White Cloth — cornflowers in a glass of water beside a terracotta bowl, the red cliff seen across the sea.

See the whole collection: Bay and Bloom.