Jean-Charles Cazin (1841-1901) was a major figure in French landscape painting. I was drawn to Homestead by the Sea not just because of the peachy, dreamy atmosphere, but because it was like a story – a glimpse into this other life.
I thought this description of Cazin’s work in The Century Magazine (1881-1930) captured it exactly:
“How well he knows how to envelop a landscape in atmosphere … how admirably he can place a figure in it so that it shall neither usurp the importance of the landscape … nor appear merely as an accessory.”1
“His color-schemes are invariably quiet and reserved; and though contrasts and the counterplay exist, they are so subdued as not to attract attention to themselves. They are effective in the best sense of the word, because they make themselves felt only in the ensemble.”2
Of course, for my ekphrastic series, I was also interested in what was planted in the fields, and what the farmer was carrying in the bucket.
The form of this poem is a French form, a dizain. More about ekphrastic poetry here. More of my ekphrastic poetry here. For a traditional fried Normandy potato dish click here.
Homestead by the Sea
More than sixty years before the homestead
witnessed seven thousand ships on its sea
and troops landing to liberate, troops dead,
it crouched behind pear-shaped haystacks, daily
watching a farmer between wars. And he,
revered the peach haze, his quiet cliff life,
the broody skies, wildflowers, the wildlife,
self-sufficient despite the homestead’s size.
He dug potatoes for his Normand wife
to cube and fry; fields yet to agonise.
©elsp2026
The YouTube version of my poem:
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