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.