The Jurors

You say the Oil is the most painterly in the Show.

You say the feeling is very 'En Plaine Aire',

Like you were there

On that hot June day, beyond the end of the track.

 

Then you say the greens are wrong,

Too many, too much the same.

The distant hills do not recede,

The foreground is too flat.

 

But that is my experience. Didn't you see?

 

The hills press on my forehead,

The pink earth, the Bluebunch and Pigweed, fly up And cover my mouth and nostrils, like cheesecloth.

The trees lie like jewels in the liquid air.

 

~ Mildred Jane Baines
April 25, 2005