The Grand St Bernard Pass is one of the passes that links Switzerland to Italy. It is a place with a very ancient history as the first hospice at the top was built in the eleventh century. At such hight, the weather is often changeable and the environment austere. In summer, it is after the passage of rain that the vegetation becomes a bright green that I have tried to translate in this work by using the “glazing technique”.
I often use glazing in my paintings. This ancient technique, used by the great masters,
makes it possible to obtain a result that I like to call “alive”. Indeed, when the near-transparent layers of paint are penetrated by light, the rays are either reflected or absorbed, sending an image to the human eye that changes according to the type of light to which the painting is subjected.
For example, on sunny days, the painting will look much brighter because the yellow paint undercoats are more highly reflected and it is this colour that the human eye detects. Obviously, depending on the inclination of the light as well as its intensity, the path of the light rays though the layers of paint will also be different and therefore, the image we see will also change slightly. For this work, this effect is more obvious on
the clouds at the top left of the paint, as well as near the focal point of the painting.