Sunset, Tuesday, 12 May 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.The first sunset of the night was intensely bright gold in the center and dirty brown-mauve to the sides, below a stifled screened-off blue and a high pale white cloud. This was just after 8:00.

Then the gold went coppery and not as bright, but with contrail-like rips of a white brighter than white by virtue of a smoky undershade – light focused through trails of smoke. And the blue stayed flat. Now it was almost 8:15, technically past sunset.

The yellow and violet tones then merged into something like red gold, the metal, the streaks dimmed, and the blue started to breathe.

The woods got tired of waiting and gave up most of their color to silhouette; the mountains just got brighter, a scrim of radiant cobalt.

I went upstairs to paint, knowing I would have to keep looking out the window for some late spectacular phase, as very often happens. But not tonight.