Microsoft users – this one’s for you. Remember that Windows background of the lush green rolling hill and cloudy blue sky? Well, Microsoft has phylloxera to thank for that classic background. The image is named ‘Bliss’ and has graced at least a billion computer screens since the system’s 2001 launch.
This image of the Napa Valley in California was snapped by photographer Charles O’Rear. It was taken nearly a decade after phylloxera decimated the area, resulting in approximately 20,000 hectares of vineyards being removed. Rows of dead vines were replaced by a lush carpet of grass. Bliss was born.
Ten years on, this well-known hill has been replanted back to grapevines.
To read the original article which appeared in Arty Editorial by Abigail Cain, 3 July 2017 click here.
