If there are too many clouds, it will be so subtle you might not even consider it a sunrise.
That picture was taken at 7:12 AM, looking in the right spot. The sun rose at 7:18, and that means it was the very best time for capturing the most interesting, dramatic sunrise. So was it dull? It's a challenge to find interestingness. That's how I see it. Looking a bit toward the north, I decided this view was gloriously subtle:
Paint that. Take a month to paint it. It's like a thousand-mile pilgrimage.
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Sad day in Madison. Surprised the sun even rose. Badgers blew their chance to win the national championship.
The last photo is beautiful. That is an autumnal Midwestern sky. I grew up under that sky.
@Althouse, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot could get that sky in a matter of minutes.
It looks like one of those Whistler paintings of the Thames.
y'all are lucky to have your Capitol city in such a beautiful spot.
Iowa (which i LOVE) has its Capitol city in a swamp
Still; could be Worse. Our Capitol was once in the People's Republic of Johnson County
Can't paint, but staring at subtle sunsets beats trying to read entrails or tea leaves, and it's definitely better than dealing with airports.
"I decided this view was gloriously subtle..."
like a Rothko. or a desert.
and deserts are so vast and spare their beauty can be overwhelming.
“Dark clouds bring waters, when the bright bring none.”
― John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress
Time for Pendleton wool shirts. Fall outfits are seen everywhere.
Ms Althouse, I understand you've driven through North Texas, as you've posted pictures from your trips. My wife and I have driven through the flat and seemingly monotonous terrain of North Texas and the Panhandle of Texas many times. The area is best described as nondescript, but if you look a little closer you can see hints of the understated beauty of the land. I refer to this beauty as subtle, as you have to look for it, but the beauty is definitely there. It isn't Yosemite or the Swiss Alps, but it's beautiful in a very subtle way. Your imagery of the cloud-covered sunrise reminded me of the concept of subtle beauty.
Just saw Mick Mulvaney with Chris Wallace. Georgetown honors grad. No surprise. Good man. Super smart guy. Irish fighter.
"@Althouse, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot could get that sky in a matter of minutes."
So could Bob Ross, but I'm talking about a meditative process in which you find far more than the eye will see. You say "that sky," but what does that mean? I take you to mean the sky as it seems when I look at that photograph for a few seconds. But if you blew the photograph up and put a grid on it, then took a LARGE canvas and put a grid on it, then spent an hour really looking at each square — where the grid is dense enough that an hour per square would take a month — and you really tried to find all the detail in each square and to translate that with meditative care into brushstrokes and careful color that added up to gray from a distance, you would have a painting that would be different from what you are talking about. It would be a painting I would want to look at and spend some time looking at, if only because I knew that it was a record of your spiritual journey.
That said, Bob Ross was on a spiritual journey, but the thing to be looked at is his show, not the actual painting that emerged from the process.
"The area is best described as nondescript, but if you look a little closer you can see hints of the understated beauty of the land. I refer to this beauty as subtle, as you have to look for it, but the beauty is definitely there. It isn't Yosemite or the Swiss Alps, but it's beautiful in a very subtle way. Your imagery of the cloud-covered sunrise reminded me of the concept of subtle beauty."
Yes. It's important not to let the extreme experiences numb you to the value of the small and subtle. Going to great lengths to get to Yosemite or the Swiss Alps can make you the sort of person who doesn't notice the beauty of your home and of all kinds of small and gentle things. We're exposed to so much extreme stimulations: pornography, very spicy food, exaggerated political propaganda, phantasmagoric super-hero movies. We even think we're better if we feel right at home at that level, but I think it's damaging to the human spirit. Where's the love?
"like a Rothko"
There's a nice Flickr group, ROTHKOesque.
The sun is rising.
3 non-cowardly non-corrupt democrats emerge. Tulsi, Williamson, Yang. I still disagree with their leftwing poltics. But they know who the fraud is.
The definition of corruption in American politics is Clinton-Biden. + all of their corrupt satellites inside the FBI, entrenched bureaucracy, and the corrupt corporate media.
Tusli:
“Thank you @HillaryClinton,” she posted. “You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain.”
Gabbard continued the retort during an appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight: “The reason why she’s doing this is because ultimately she knows she can’t control me. I stand against everything that she represents.”
I knew there was a reason - a gut level reason Tulsi seemed cool. Know its crystal clear.
1106AMCDT. Most recent comment Prof's@1052AM
Althouse moodscaping.
Sky, lake, grey dawn's gradations.
Subtly glorious.
Just as a matter of curiosity, how many commenters here try to follow each and every thread? Raise your hands, please.
I find it pretty hard to keep up with maybe 1/3 or 1/4 of them, much less make comments.
It doesn't have anything much to do with moderation, FWIW.
Narr
Small subtle musings later
Great "photos", what camera are you using?
"Great "photos", what camera are you using?"
Just my iPhone XS.
I like the second one very much. Just perfect.
There's a word for this in Japanese, "yuugen" rendered in English syllables (the double u represents the long vowel sound). It refers to a sense of the mysterious perfection of Nature that is manifest in every part, including what we might call humble or ordinary things, when we pay attention. It informs my photographic work on a deep level.
Even in physics we learn that the closer we look at Nature, the stranger and more wonderful it turns out to be.
@Althouse, from time to time it becomes fashionable for critics to treat Corot's work with some degree of disdain. But he's very good at capturing the small changes of light in an overcast sky. It's just that first you have to look.
Wow, that's depressing. I can take warm and cloudy. I can take cold with blue sky and partly cloudy. I can take rain or snow. But cloudy, cold, and no rain always depresses the hell out of me.
My vision of Hell: Slush/ice filled roads, overcast, 30 degrees.
"Paint that. Take a month to paint it. It's like a thousand-mile pilgrimage."
I am working on mastering drawing in ink, including shading/hatching to achieve the same depth as pencil. I feel like I've mastered pencil drawing to a fair extent years ago. Now THAT image would be quite challenge in ink - to convey lightness and mistiness with black line.
I follow many artists on Instagram. One of them draws one tiny square after another...and another...filling up a huge page simply repeating one simple shape. Zooming out to take it all in, it has the appearance of fabric. Now that technique might work here.
If I wasn't so frackin' busy....I'll have to bookmark this and take up the challenge some day.
215PMCDT / MRC 1151AM Phidippus.
"Even in physics"? Why "even"? I'm with the D-boys (Dawkins & Dennett) as far as I understand them on this issue-- the un-wove rainbow loses none of its beauty and wonder for some of us.
Narr
It's strange and wonderful, fractally so.
“ There's a word for this in Japanese, "yuugen" ..”
Thanks! I like that a lot.
“ Wow, that's depressing. I can take warm and cloudy. I can take cold with blue sky and partly cloudy. I can take rain or snow. But cloudy, cold, and no rain always depresses the hell out of me.”
I guess it LOOKS cold. It wasn’t cold.
Narr: No real issue. Sometimes I'm slow to change from my artist hat to my engineer hat.
Same head though, God help us.
Nocturne painting is a term coined by James Abbott McNeill Whistler to describe a painting style that depicts scenes evocative of the night or subjects as they appear in a veil of light, in twilight, or in the absence of direct light.
He never painted his Nocturnes on the spot, but rather from memory in his studio, employing a special material devised for painting swiftly in oils. He thinned his paint with copal, turpentine and linseed oil, creating what he called a 'sauce', which he applied in thin, transparent layers, wiping it away until he was satisfied.
Sunrises are all beautiful, some more dramatically so than others. I like the grey on grey.
I've seen some great sunrises over the Atlantic ocean while sailing. The sunsets though were almost always better. We looked for the green flash, never managed to see it. These are made better by the moment, the environment, the motion of the boat, the sound of wind in the sails, the silence around us.
Phidippus said...
I like the second one very much. Just perfect.
There's a word for this in Japanese, "yuugen" rendered in English syllables (the double u represents the long vowel sound).
Thanks, Phidippus. As God is my witness, I didn't know President Trump spoke Japanese!
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