Picnic Under The Fig Tree

50" x 72"
Oil
1996

Up in the hills in the little finca, Spanish farmhouse, where I lived, along the road there were two huge fig trees. They didn't grow up to the sky, but rather, horizontally. Their powerful branches and limbs spread out about thirty feet.

Every morning I was fascinated by the sheer power of their branches. The trees were full of fruit, and they had a kind of dianphanous look because their leaves were sparse and their branches and limbs were glimmering against the intense blue sky in kind of Oriental movement. Each time I walked about, and looked at them, I always imagined these trees full of children, all over the trees, running sitting, hanging, jumping - on those strong branches.

For years I was carrying this image of these trees...inside. Finally, when I got to the task and painted it, I realized that I had to fill the ground below. When I painted "Dejeuner sur l'Herbe" below, the whole picture sprang to life.