Etang de Berre - La Montagne de Ste Victoire, Provence

On one of the trips that Augustus John and his wife Dorelia made to Provence, they were accompanied by their friend Helen Maitland, who said of the Etang de Berre 'It has these pale brown hills all around and it's small enough to get perfectly smooth the moment the wind is down and then the colours are lovely - very brilliant green one evening with a blue sky. All the way from Arles I was ecstatic with delight...simply speechless with astonishment at the curious light blue of one Etang we passed. They had planted cypresses all along the line so we only saw it for a moment or two now and again through a break in them. But I doubt if any mortal could have stood such loveliness much prolonged' (see Michael Holroyd, Augustus John, London, 1996, p. 316).