Half Burnt Olive Tree

oil on canvas  35 x 50 cm

Vegetable Garden in Olive Grove with Water Tin

oil on canvas  50 x 60 cm

Byzantine church of saint Dimitrios, Mystras

The castle on top of the hill at an altitude of 620 m. was built in 1249 by the greatest of all Frankish princes, William II of Villehardouin. William was  a “second generation “crusader knight : he was born in Kalamata the second son of Geoffrey of Villehardouin, who had taken the cross in the fourth crusade . He spoke both French and Greek. Somewhere I read that   prince William  made a point of spending   every Spring in Mystras, because he  loved  the many  flowers that decorate the hill in that period.  In 1261 the Frankish  castle and palace were ceded to  the Greeks. Because of the ongoing hostilities  between  Franks , Greeks ,  Albanian tribes and Turkish mercenaries  the population  living  in the Lacedaemonian plain flocked to the better defendable hill side of Mystras.  In 1270 metropolitan Eugene started   the building and decoration   of the metropolitan church of saint Dimitrios. This oil painting shows  a cobbled path that leads down the hill to  the building complex  that was added to the church of saint Dimitrios  during the Ottoman Empire. The many flowers  are bathing in bright sunlight and in the background the Eurotas valley  can be seen. What inspired me to paint this landscape was the way in which the flowers  seemed  to  radiate light. The trunk of  the  cypress tree casts a shadow forming a line that guides the eye to the sun lit flowers, playing the leading part. I’ve argued before (see here) that many landscape paintings gain interest by incorporating some kind of human intervention; without the building complex there would be no “stage” for the flowers to play their leading role.

Cobbled path leading down to  the church of saint Dimitrios,  Mystras

40 x 50 cm, oil painting

Pantanassa Monastery , Mystras

Laconia in early Spring  is one of the most beautiful places to be.  The abundance  of colours is  impressive. The highest peaks of Mount Taygetos  are covered  in brightly shining white; yellow, red, pink and violet  flowers enliven the green meadows and  the sky  is nearly always blue. It’s not difficult for a painter to find a subject to paint.  No matter how inspiring nature may be though , quite often a landscape becomes more interesting when one can include an architectural  construction. My dear father, Jan Poelstra,  who left us last year only a week before his eighty-third birthday (may his memory last forever)  was a successful architect. It was his opinion that a building appropriately designed accomplishes nature.

In many of my paintings I’ve acted upon his principle (see for instance here). Human intervention does not necessarily have to be the point of focus in a painting. In this oil painting  the bell tower of the  Pantanassa Monastery in Mystras  serves as  background to  the Mediterranean Spurge.

Byzantine church in Mystras

Nearly twenty years ago now, when my son was still a little baby, I started painting. My life in the little Greek village I lived in after my marriage to the owner of the local coffee shop had become so unbearably dull that I decided that I had to find something to do to give meaning to my life. When I was a little girl I’d liked  to draw and to paint.  I even had won a price in a drawing contest  for basic schools in Belgium and the Netherlands.  Every  morning  when I woke up the first thing I saw was the snow topped mountain range of Taygetos. From the terrace of my house I could see both the Byzantine castle town  of Mystras and the pre-historic sanctuary of  Menelaos and Helen. The little village was surrounded by olive groves  and along the banks of the river Eurotas  grew many orange trees. The ideal environment for a creative spirit.

Every time I went to visit  my parents and sister in Holland I returned with my suitcases filled to the brim with art books on how to learn to paint. I bought oil paints and brushes. An easel was slept from Holland to Laconia by my sister and her husband in their old Opel. And I started to paint.

My first painting was a large one: 50 x 70  cm. The subject of the painting is the Byzantine church of the   holy two  saints Theodoros in springtime Mystras. In the painting one can see the snowtopped  mountain Taygetos in the background, while in the center one sees the flesh coloured octagonal Byzantine church in the midst of  green meadows topped with flowers and flanked by rows of elegant cypresses.