Sunrise,Sunset by Design

There is a great history to the  long, red-and-yellow raking light of sunrise and sunset . The edge-of-day light gives a  theatrical power to paintings. In the Dutch golden age of painting, the 1600s, artists like Koninck, Rembrandt, Van Ruisdael, Hobbema, Cuyp and Van Goyen found inspiration in the directional light of morning or late afternoon/evening. Midday day painting would wait for the Impressionists 200 years later. Here , in these Dutch paintings we can trace their basic designs, direction of illumination,  narratives, and coloring.  First,  Philip de Koninck’s landscape provides the standard  model of a low, dark  horizontal foreground interrupted  by a  few areas of subtle light. His sky is designed like a stage-set background with the large curve of a cloud acting as a  framing curtain (see example one) . I  discover the same motif with my camera on an early morning walk ( example 2).

example 1, Koninck painting:

example 2, my morning photo:

The Venetian artist Francesco Guardi,  a chronological contemporary of Koninck’s, employed classical architecture as a device to catch the light of the setting sun.  His late-day light rakes across the painting in a horizontal stretch(example 3).  Here the painting is not backlit as in the previous examples.   Later 20th century artists like Balthus would use the same plan to create their work (example 4). In my photographs I have borrowed Guardi’s  raking horizontal light. In examples 5 and 6 observe the dark threshold at the bottom of the image. We step over the forefront’s  dark area( its dark threshold) and, into the light just as Guardi had done . My pine trees, both distant and close, assume the roles of the Guardi’s architectural subjects.

example3, Guardi painting:

example 4,Balthus painting,1955:

example 5,morning photo:

example 6 other morning photo:

Another form of sunrise/sunset  can be found in many of the  late landscapes of George Inness. His  source of illumination is contre-jour( back lit). This form of backlighting emphasizes a silhoutted ambiguous narrative.  I found a scene on my early morning walk that reminded me of the Inness with its low warm light on the horizon pushing a glow through a patch of trees.

example 7,  Inness painting.

example 8, Morning photo of mine.

Finally, I have a painting with the light  appearing to be at an uncertain time of day. The reflected light from the submerged rocks in the foreground differs from the light on the falling water. This image suggests light from two different times of day, two  curious and different qualities of light. The conundrum of the light is another way to pursue ambiguity  and duality in painting nature’s light (example 9) .  Before  concluding, I  invite you to join me in for a one day workshop on  figures in the landscape (urban and bucolic) this Saturday at  the Silvermine School of art 203 966 6668.

example 9, painting on brushed gold anodized aluminum: