Edward Lear 1812-1888

Lear reached the pine forests of Bavella, in the south east of Corsica on 28th April 1868. The previous night he stayed in the Inn at Solenzaro and set off in his two-horse carriage at 6 in the morning. Lear wrote in his Journal of a Landscape Painter in Corsica, `The pines are exquisitely beautiful, and unlike any I have ever seen; perfectly bare and straight to a great height, they seem to rise like giant needles from the `deep blue gloom’ of the abyss below’ (Edward Lear, Edward Lear in Corsica – Journal of a Landscape Painter, 1966, p.102). At 3 o’clock he reached the top of the pass known as Bocca di Larone: `These crags ….. are doubly awful and magnificent now that one is close to them, and, excepting the heights of Serbal and Sinai, they exceed in grandeur anything of the kind I have ever seen….. As I contemplate the glory of this astonishing amphitheatre, I decide to stay at least another day within its limits, and I confess that a journey to Corsica is worth any amount of expense and trouble, if but to look on this scene alone. At length I have seen that of which I have heard so much – a Corsican forest’ (op.cit., p.103).

On their way down, `the clouds burst’ and they sheltered in two forester’s houses. After the storm, Lear recounts that `the sun gleams out through cloud, the whole scene is lighted up in a thousand splendid ways, and becomes more than ever astonishing, a changeful golden haze illumes the top of the mighty pines…. no frenzy of the wildest dreams of a landscape painter could shape out ideal scenes of more magnificence and wonder’ (op.cit., p.104)