Sunset, Friday, 18 December 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Painted at Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

This is the beginning of what it appears will be the first major snowstorm in years for central Virginia east of the Blue Ridge. Big snows for Washington northward (and westward in the Shenandoah Valley) have just meant a mess of sleet and freezing rain here, making Charlottesville’s alleged average annual snowfall of around 18 inches seem like a cruel joke to us kids who want to get out of school. Seriously, over the last 10 years I’ve begun to think our winter climate was pretty much that of ... I don’t know ... northern Georgia.

After sunset I was in the middle of the woods, using the last moments of light to cut firewood where part of an oak had crashed down a few years ago. I was looking at the snow coming down through the trees and thinking about the color tones you can see behind snow. Sometimes it’s violet or lilac, sometimes a sort of cobalt blue, or even an orange or a red, and a background of trees can add a strangely warm umber.

A master at painting atmosphere of all kinds was Childe Hassam. I’ve mentioned before the impression that his “Late Afternoon, New York, Winter” made on me when I saw it at The Brooklyn Museum. It’s apparently on exhibit there now, on the fifth floor. Surprisingly, a shot of the painting at another site seems more accurate to the color I remember than the museum’s own photo. But snow is tricky, whether out in the weather or on a canvas; basically, you can see it as almost any color you like.

Sunset, Thursday, 17 December 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Painted at Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

Wrestling today with a makeshift photo lighting setup – lights had to be sent back to the vendor for replacement – I contemplated the prospect of not being able to post the paintings at all (if they didn’t look halfway accurate).

The funny thing about that was how it made it more difficult to follow the usual discipline of painting – yet I painted sunsets for years while I wasn’t able to show them to anyone. Now I’m spoiled almost to the point of not being able to do them without you.

The sky this afternoon, until the sun fell, seemed all one color, a bluescape. I decided it was monoromantic.

Sunset, Wednesday, 16 December 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Painted at Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

I had a choice from among innumerable stages of a clear winter twilight. I did one that reminded me of the sky over the slate roofs of the dorms at Hopkins, after I’d come outside from washing dishes.

I ran across this line in the second book of In Search of Lost Time (James Grieve translation). I’ve gone back to look at it a dozen times.

Our furthest-reaching resolutions are always made in a short-lived state of mind.

Proust isn’t saying these resolutions are made lightly or at all superficially – that’s one of the things I found so interesting. What mainly has kept me thinking about the line is how uncannily true it seems. A text for any biography.

I was amazed not to find the quote in Bartlett’s, whether in bound book or online, or anywhere in Bartleby.com, although it would be easy enough to miss, in that mess.

Sunset, Tuesday, 15 December 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Painted at Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

Thanks to J. Tillman, who I heard for the first time today, I also heard, for the first time, “My Proud Mountains” by Townes Van Zandt, from a tribute album by mostly newer artists called Introducing Townes Van Zandt Via The Great Unknown. The following may seem a little morbid, especially considering the course TVZ’s life took, but ... anyway ... by way of burial instructions, the song says, lay him down easy –

with only my mountains between me and the sun

Sunset, Monday, 14 December 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Painted at Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on canvas, 16 x 20.

Near-far, white-blue, veils of haze and all the way past the veils, terrestrial contrails and untracked space, the gray in the gold, the pink in the gray, a gauzy mess barely noticed on the way back from Christmas shopping turns out to be, when you get home, a big garden of little evening glories.

Sunset, Sunday, 13 December 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Painted at Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

Mist and fog everywhere at sunset, after heavy rains.

I’m a fan of small mountains – perhaps because I like to imagine living within the world they create, a varied but accessible landscape. My favorite small mountain, I’ve finally just learned, in Madison County, Virginia, is named Thorofare. (Not the much higher and larger Thorofare Mountain up on the Blue Ridge and also, as it happens, in Madison.) The sight of it from Route 29 – I think if I lived with that as my view I might not be able to stop painting it. And having said this much, I guess I now owe you at least a sketch, as soon as I can get back there.

The other day on my trip up to Great Falls, I was passing near Thorofare Mountain while the radio was playing something I ordinarily find dull – and I even felt that way when I was 12 and it was #1 – Connie Francis, “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool.” This time it struck me in a new way, and made me think about how the original emotional meaning of a song can become transposed, over the years, from personal romance to something much bigger. I realized, looking at the mountain, what a fool somebody can be for this world.