Autumn Illuminated

by Steve Henderson

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Price

$2,700

Dimensions

36.000 x 18.000 x 1.500 inches

Title

Autumn Illuminated

Artist

Steve Henderson

Medium

Painting - Oil On Canvas

Description

Nobody wants to live in a state of constant, unpredictable change – one in which events permutate so rapidly and randomly that you cannot predict what will happen next. This is anarchy.

Neither, at the same time, does one want to live in a state where nothing ever changes – a situation in which not only the next minute, but the next year or even decade, stays stagnant. In that way lies boredom and ennui.

In the world of mankind, both situations are desirable by despots and tyrants who rattle nations and ordinary people with the first and then, when they have achieved their goals, impose the latter. But in the real world, the larger world of nature that embraces humankind as a part of the world and not its rulers, there is a balance of change and permanence.

And so we find the seasons: they are predictable in their arrival, year by year, in their accorded time: spring follows winter, summer follows spring, and, taking its place before winter, is autumn. Year by year the cycle continues – comfortably, predictably, regularly.

And yet . . . not so. Each season, while it has its hallmarks, borrows from the season before and the season after – spring has the bluster of winter, the heat of summer, the blossoms of spring. Each day is different, unexpected.

Autumn especially plays with a large and colorful palette. Early in the season are the golds and yellow of dried grass and harvested crops. Late in the season it is grey with rain and mist. And in the middle of the season, in the midst of it all, we find Autumn Illuminated, a landscape filled with red and orange, coral and rust, gold and yellow – along with blue skies and white clouds, and the hint of green still to be found in the fields.

It is a gloriously beautiful time, a celebration of color and bounty that is almost outrageous. But it is also fleeting, because it is not stagnant and still, no more than it is unpredictable and random.

It is the perfect balance of change and permanence.

(Autumn Illuminated is a country landscape of Eastern Washington, at the foot of the Blue Mountains.)

Featured on 35 Fine Art America groups.

Uploaded

May 22nd, 2020

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