Sunset, Saturday, 26 September 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

Out on a very wet seven-mile ramble with Flint the pound-found foxhound, even in, or especially in, the gray light I was seeing so many colors. (Flint meanwhile was more than doubling my mileage, chasing things I never saw and I’m not sure he saw, either.) Standing in the lonesome part of this place we call Abandon Alley – a wide swath of power line where you can see at least a mile of cut-over nothing in particular – with woods ranged along either side of a long, stepped descent to the river and an equally long rise to a blue-green field on the opposite height (strange, almost the exact color of oats in midsummer), I realized that if I were to try to name all the color variations I was seeing, it would go on forever – and I wouldn’t mind. Just naming variations on green and yellow would be enough – poplar yellow (or maybe that should be yellow poplar yellow), cedar green, distant patches sort of brown but actually dried weeds of a pinkish gold, and just at hand, clinging on a swaying head of deep goldenrod, a pale yellow moth. And so on.

But the best color encounter came later, in the middle of the woods. In that peculiar, even light of clouds and rain, I was stumped by the turning dogwood leaves – not yet the dark scarlet of mid-autumn, some were still green and some – a delicate shade of orange I realized I couldn’t describe. Couldn’t describe it then and I know I can’t describe it now without a little imaginative assistance from you. A fresh new bright pale orange with a subtle overtone of red and an undertone of something like cream. How was this happening?

I finally took a leaf – in fact, I ended up taking two, to look at a deeper variation on the theme. (To many native Virginians, although it’s – just – O.K. to take a dogwood leaf, if you break a branch or, God forbid, kill a tree ... you only hope nobody finds out.) And so I found the reason for my difficulty. On one side, the side that had been facing the light, each leaf was turning the familiar russet and almost violet red. But on the underside – still not penetrated with the red, the side facing me was a flat, neutral, almost colorless green. The effect was composite, from backlighted screens of scarlet and green. No wonder I couldn’t put a name to it. I do know that if they made a candy that soft orange color – like maybe a tropical fruit–flavored variety of Chuckles – it would be irresistible.

Rain all day – might have to turn the sky over to find the colors.