Sunset, Tuesday, 29 December 2009

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

There’s a winter landscape right between a freeze and a thaw, and you may interpret it differently depending on which direction it’s taking. Some ground shows, in places even almost dry, there’s a beaten-back green inside the dead-straw matted grass – while entire fields remain solidly white. The sky approaching sunset doesn’t tip off any colors or show any clouds. We might have a solemn sinking of the sun and a falling thermometer, and no reassuring music to go along with it. Then at the last minute, even though it is indeed turning cold, we hear a little tune for a winter sunset.