Landscape in Grays

24" x 18"

oil on panel

This painting follows the basic schema used in Winter Landscape I in which the opposing verticals can be read as trees or curtains (domestic at a window sill or those for a stage). When I explained this reading to my mother-in-law, she had the correct observation that one gets the feeling of the first moment the stage curtains are drawn back to reveal the scenery. That moment is full of freshness, excitement, and anticipation. Perhaps, if I am lucky, I am able to show the long familiar subject of landscape anew. The pictures are unveiled and are about clarity. In Landscape in Grays, the crystalline, pale blue sky is captivating as it encapsulates the gray and stretches over the next layer of gray-green. Painting students learn to see the rainbow in whites and the dingiest institutional gray floors and surroundings. This painting makes use of a limited palette (a pared-down selection of colors), but still achieves luminosity. The proportion of the verticals is different than my other paintings and it gives the feeling of collosal scale like the columns of the Acropolis.