Monday, May 11, 2009

Tree and Shadow

This is a tree and its shadow on Longview Terrace in Williamstown, MA.

John Ruskin writes in Modern Painters: "...there is no climate, no place, and scarcely an hour, in which nature does not exhibit color which no mortal effort can imitate or approach.  For all our artificial pigments are, even when seen under the same circumstances, dead and lightless beside her living color; the green of a growing leaf, the scarlet of a fresh flower, no art nor expedient can reach; but in addition to this, nature exhibits her hues under an intensity of sunlight which trebles their brilliancy, while the painter, deprived of this splendid aid, works still with what is actually a gray shadow compared to the force of nature's color."

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