"The Longest Night"
Small landscape painting of a tranquil countryside in strange unearthly light. It is neither night nor day. The sleepy landscape with its quiet house and trees is bathed in a timeless solstice sun which evokes a quality of restlessness. The sky is heavy. The stalks of the wild flowers in the foreground are quite still. There is a sense of anticipation. Something is about to happen.
Small landscape painting of a tranquil countryside in strange unearthly light. It is neither night nor day. The sleepy landscape with its quiet house and trees is bathed in a timeless solstice sun which evokes a quality of restlessness. The sky is heavy. The stalks of the wild flowers in the foreground are quite still. There is a sense of anticipation. Something is about to happen.
Small landscape painting of a tranquil countryside in strange unearthly light. It is neither night nor day. The sleepy landscape with its quiet house and trees is bathed in a timeless solstice sun which evokes a quality of restlessness. The sky is heavy. The stalks of the wild flowers in the foreground are quite still. There is a sense of anticipation. Something is about to happen.
The summer solstice is a mystical time of year. It's easy to imagine a different age of rituals and miracles, doorways opening, visitations beyond our wildest earthly dreams.
However, in reality, I find the the longest day unsettling. Its potency is tempered by a feeling of change, a sense of an ending.
Daylight that has no end, especially in the northern hemisphere, takes me to a cache of memories from which I can get no relief. The darkness and rest that usually come so readily with the night elude me. I'm left with an ache of nostalgia, and only the promise of a false dawn for company.
The longest night has passed.
Beneath edgeless skies
bruised by longing
trees will soon begin to whisper.
They sway, laden with secrets.
“The Longest Night”
Acrylic/Oil pastels/Collage
4.5” x 4.5” (framed 11” x 11”)
Original artwork
Glazed and mounted in a black bevelled frame, ready for hanging