#O95: as Mist Resembles Rain

Morning in Waikato, New Zealand (Oil on Canvas, 20 x 30″). This painting is the largest I have done this year and is based on a photo (shown below) I took one early morning. The view is looking toward the town of Ngāruawāhia, with the Hakarimata mountains beyond.

I really struggled with the clouds and sky, and I tried in several sessions over about two weeks. At one stage the sky looked just like the photo below, but then I did not like the painting! In the end I settled for something more dramatic, resembling twilight, early night, rather than morning.

Here is a larger version of the painting as it now stands. I think this could be a never-ending work in progress.

The poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is often held up as an example of an old style poet – one who perhaps spelled out too much for the reader – lacking the sophistication of modern poets like Wallace Stevens and T.S. Eliot.

But there was a time when I held on to his poem “The Day is Done” like a lifeline. It was to me like a symphony I could relax into when things became too much for me. My painting above reminded me of the end of a day, with a village gleaming through the mist, just like Longfellow describes in his poem.

Here are the opening and final verses of his poem, The Day is Done:

The Day is Done

The day is done, and the darkness

      Falls from the wings of Night,

As a feather is wafted downward

      From an eagle in his flight.

 

I see the lights of the village

      Gleam through the rain and the mist,

And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me

      That my soul cannot resist:

 

A feeling of sadness and longing,

      That is not akin to pain,

And resembles sorrow only

      As the mist resembles the rain.

…

And the night shall be filled with music,

      And the cares, that infest the day,

Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,

      And as silently steal away.

 

Thanks for stopping by my blog. I hope you are happy and content.