As Far as the Eye Can See IV ©John O’Grady
20″ x 27″ x 0.75″ oil on canvas, ready to hang
SOLD
Have you ever had one of those dreams where you are flying above the land?
It feels exhilarating doesn’t it?
I’m drawn to painting aerial views and panoramic vistas.
Observing the world from above, feeling connecting to space and the aerial is a joy.
In this piece, we are standing on top of a hill and we discover the world before us. Like when we are in a dark room, our eye needs to get accustomed to what’s before us.
Here, it’s to take in the vastness, the openness. And it’s to get attuned to the dynamic spectacle.
The filtered light is falling upon the green fields and bare uplands.
Our eye is attracted to lighter colours in the distance and we realise we are looking at the sea, sparkling in the evening light.
Then we start noticing darker shapes, are these islands or shadows? Is our mind playing tricks and deceiving us or are we seeing something real and diffuse?
In the sky, darkening clouds congregate while some silver lines let us know it’s not night-time yet.
Where the horizon touches the sky is an area tantalizing and elusive. The brushstrokes suggest a hide and seek game that pushes the horizon further and further back as if reaching out to infinity and disappearing into the ether.
The horizon is slightly bowed to emphasise that open space and panorama.
Have you ever, like in the old Irish song ‘Spancill Hill’, ‘stepped on board a vision and followed with a will’, then at the end of the flying dream ‘awoke in California’?
I’d love to read your comment.
Indeed I do feel suspended in air (as I have in many dreams, mostly when I was younger), with all the elements in their full majesty below me and the curve of the Earth itself beyond. I get a strong sense of the turning of the season, although I don’t know whether that was on your mind while you were painting. I love the contrast of the etched mountains and treetops against the more softly blended colors in the middleground and distance. The colors are powerful and deep and have a pre-autumnal feel to me — the last hurrah of the “green fuse” for another year — with the raked light on the glimmering water like little jewels in the landscape.
It’s odd, John, but the melody of Spancil Hill has been haunting me lately and I was driving myself mad trying to remember the name of the song so I could find it. And as soon as I read it here, I knew you had done that for me! There’s a very simply arranged, sweet and melancholy version by the great Christy Moore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu_tTPMB62s .
Thanks once again for bringing visual (and aural) beauty to my Sunday.
Hello Jo,
Thank you for the link. I think this version of the song is the best I have heard. Christy really knows how to interpret traditional material doesn’t he?
I am glad that the Spancill Hill ref cleared up the query you were having. It is so maddening when that happens, a tip of the tongue moment.
Your thoughts on the painting as always made me reflect on the painting I had made. The autumnal feel was purely by coincidence but I certainly agree it has that atmosphere of the cusp of change. As you say the ‘last hurrah of green’ presaging the mist and muted brick orange of autumn.
What a wonderful painting John – it would enhance any home. I like the way you describe it in your blog as a ‘flying dream’ and when looking I sense those dream-like qualities exemplified by perspective. There is a ‘cinemascope’ effect created by the vast expanse of land sea and sky and all in glorious technicolour’ with subtle light effects and delicate shadows. Your link to ‘Spancill Hill’ is inspired and I have just listened to Christy Moore singing it with your lovely painting still in my mind’s eye.
Hello Chris
Thank you for your lovely comment on the painting. Yes the ‘cinemascope’ aspect that you mention is the right word I think and one I really like. It works very well with the idea of ‘flying’ or passing over the land onward towards the infinity. I know how you both enjoy paintings with wide open vistas, so it is great to hear that it connects with you.