In a Fragonard Neighborhood – Sunset, Friday, 27 June 2014

William Van Doren, IN A FRAGONARD NEIGHBORHOOD. Sunset from Hilltop Road, Charlottesville, Va. Oil on Arches, 17 x 23.

I was in an old Charlottesville area near the junction of Blue Ridge Road and Hilltop, and while the French court painter Fragonard might have found the homes not quite grand by Versailles standards, and the architecture just a bit Anglo, the places are plenty nice, and with the great trees and big sky I was reminded of his work, or of the world suggested by it. I love all that romantic Fragonard and Boucher stuff and I don’t care who knows it. Anyone who paints the clouds and trees of high summer — not to mention beautiful women on a swing — is alright by me.

Sunset, Saturday, 20 June 2009

Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.Summer, scheduled for tomorrow, showed up today, although not until after noon.

After a back-and-forth springtime miasma of either too much heat or not enough, and rain in either case, and a close tropical morning about as oppressive as it gets, the superb high blue broke through. An hour or two of heating up all the leftover moisture until it sizzled, and then summer set up its administration.

I was driving home just before sunset, and the green roadside finally had summer depth – countless greens, watermelon green, limousine in shade, tin can green, popsicle and firecracker twilight, Fragonard or Boucher woman on a swing pink and green, baseball diamond emerald under the lights.