© Josef Herman estate

Herman travelled to Burgundy in France in 1952-3. Upon discovering the village of la Rochepot, he basked in 'a fortnight of bright autumn days, and nights lit by a red moon. Just to walk in this magnificence was sheer enchantment,' he observed, 'and afterwards to draw the things I saw was an added joy'.

This drawing recalls his first encounter with the inhabitants of la Rochepot. The morning after his arrival, the area was still cloaked in deep fog but Herman could just make out ‘the silhouettes of people of a horse and cart behind them, I shouted a greeting and asked where we were. A voice called ‘Hola!’ and the horse stopped. An old peasant couple appeared at the window. Now I could see their rugged faces. The peasant said that we were above La Rochepot and that the village was a few hundred yards down the valley. Then he and the woman retreated into the fog and within seconds were swallowed up./ By the time we had breakfasted the fog had lifted. [..] The world was visible once again, and a heavenly world it was!'

The peasant was an enduring motif for Herman, observed on his wide travels abroad, whether in France, Spain or Mexico. In his autobiography, 'Related Twilights: Notes from an artist's diary', the artist explained the appeal of this avowed preference: 'the peasant is a type, but also an individual. From their very postures once can sense a world of silent expression. But more important than their shapes or their faces, their whole bodies express a kind of transcendental declaration of human independence'.