THERE is something always a little sad about summer coming to an end. The days when the temperature was 35 degrees seem a distant memory. When the afternoons were hot, the air-conditioned Elizabeth Line offered an escape. But now that the weather has turned noticeably cooler, we can only dream of the summer gone by.
There is a sense of passing time.
I have always loved Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18:
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?/ Thou art more lovely and more temperate./ Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,/ And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
On a perfect summer’s day, when the grass has been cut and you can hear leather on willow, this really is the most beautiful country in the world.
At the weekend, I thought I would devote a couple of hours to pruning the rose bushes and clearing the tomato, courgette, pumpkin and sunflowers, but the whole day just passed. The soil is now ready for the spring bulbs. I have left the dahlias because they are still blooming as the season turns to autumn.
Kees Van Dongen’s The White LadyAmit Roy
But I am happy to report that a new exhibition at the Royal Academy – Painting the French Riviera – has brought back a touch of summer. I will be writing more about this exhibition, which offers an artistic heaven. I know the Côte d’Azur well through attending the Cannes Film Festival for many years. Part of the joy was to walk along the Croisette and see the sun on the Mediterranean on my way to the first morning screening.
It was the quality of the light that inspired many artists to paint the Riviera, the curators said. “Bringing together over 120 paintings, sculptures and drawings, as well as film, books and travel posters, the exhibition examines how artists including Claude Monet, PierreAuguste Renoir, Berthe Morisot, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and Yves Klein found inexhaustible inspiration in the brilliant light, azure skies and luminous sea in the unspoilt Eden that was the South of France,” says the Royal Academy.
I pick out a couple I would like to have above my desk. One is Claude Monet’s The Beach of Juan-les-Pins (1888) and Kees Van Dongen’s The White Lady (1926). I did buy the catalogue to look at, especially in the middle of winter if there is a foot of snow outside. A number of books set in the Riviera are displayed, among them Agatha Christie’s The Blue Train and F Scott Fitgerald’s Tender is the Night.
