The Valley of Lights IV ©John O’Grady
10″ x 8″, oil on panel; requires framing
SOLD
Colour can have a powerful effect on you.
A particular shade can bring a memory searing through your mind.
One recent late afternoon in Provence, I drove past burning gold poplars. I noticed their striking colour standing out against the darkening land but it’s only when I started this painting that they emerged unforced onto the paint surface and took me back to the Wicklow mountains.
The distant Sugar Loaf mountain was dusted with snow.
The light came from behind my shoulder and to the right, as I stood in the cold blue shadows looking down into the valley, the trees were lit by the setting sun.
In that final moment before darkness, the trees seemed ablaze with burnt gold and orange. They looked like, to paraphrase Dylan Thomas, they were raging against the dying of the light.
I’d love to hear what you think.
Oh, YES!!!!
Thanks Terry!
Wow John! Beautiful, glowing colour – it all works together so well. The contrast with the cool ice blue snowy Sugar Loaf is really inspired.
Hi Chris,
Thank you very much. Yes the good old Sugar Loaf, glad you like it.
There is a beautiful stillness in this painting John as if the earth is asleep and all the colours have been dreamt from natures mind and imagination for the very first time.
Hello Irene,
Thank you very much for interpreting the painting with such poetry and imagination. Wonderful.
perfectly contrasted landscape….”fire and ice” came to mind…a raging storm of colour below and the tranquil serenity of the mountain…. a little like human nature John…and yes a big WoW!! impacts the psyche
Hello Julie
Thanks ever so much for the comment. Fire and ice, I like that, and yes very much like human nature.