Ochres

Since we first started coming to Provence I have been fascinated by the ochres. We have been to Roussillon many times, soon realising that you have to be there early, before the coaches arrive, and then you get chance to walk round the village and see all the wonderfully coloured buildings. Unfortunately today the mist hung around all morning, obscuring the views. But it was still nice to be there in the calm. This is one of the many alleyways and shows some of the ochre colours on the walls. It also shows the low-lying mist.

Ochre pigments, with a palette of colours ranging from the palest yellow to the brightest blood red, have been quarried round here for many centuries, having been first found by the Romans. Ochre is a mixture of clay and iron-oxide coloured sands. The first step in its production consists of separating the sands from the oxides. The ore is then blended and washed before being drained into vats and left to dry. Then it is ground to a fine powder. Production of ochre in the Luberon was large scale and at its peak between 1919 and 1940. There were many factories and it was sent in huge quantities to Marseille, to be shipped all over the world.

There is very little quarrying now, mainly because of how unstable it was making some of the villages. There is also only limited production, since the discovery of chemical pigments. Interesting though that these are more expensive and not as stable as the ochres.

Ochres are used by artists and as a house paint. That is why all the houses around here are painted in the familiar range of colours. In fact in Roussillon it’s apparently a legal requirement! When I first came here I was working with design and textiles and I bought ochre pigments from the Conservatoire des Ocres and Coleur, just outside Roussillon. I experimented with adding various binding agents and was able to paint with it and dye fabrics. Great fun.

Later in the day the sun came out and the mist disappeared. There was no way though that we were going back to Roussillon to take some better pictures. We had a lovely lunch in a much quieter village instead!

And the sunset tonight was in ochres!