a summer dream

 

Trying to Observe Color

Monet described his attempts to observe and capture the colors in nature thus: “I’m chasing the merest sliver of color. It’s my own fault, I want to grasp the intangible. It’s terrible how the light runs out, taking color with it. Color, any color, lasts a second, sometimes three or four minutes at a time. What to do, what to paint in three or four minutes. They’re gone, you have to stop. Ah, how I suffer, how painting makes me suffer! It tortures me.”*

Poor Monet! A camera is quicker than paint! (heh, heh!....just kidding!) Actually, I've been thinking about the golden hour and how beautiful it is and how quickly the most beautiful moments go by and how much I try and want to catch some of it, somehow, but always fall short. I've been wondering, now that it's frozen February, why I wasn't out, every evening, in my backyard, this summer. I'm rich! I have a whole five acres of this but summer is so short lived. So, now, I'm looking out the window of my memory, thrumming my fingers and waiting for it to come around again.... a midwinter's summer dream....

* The quote comes from an "About.com" article (of all things) Techniques of the Impressionists: What Colors are Shadows?