The purest artistic side of the sunset
It is autumn, and we have finally got into it because, due to climate change, this beautiful season tends to come later and last less. Both November and December provide us with very gorgeous sunsets in the afternoons of our cities, neighbourhoods, parks, etc.
A few years ago, I heard from a girl who is a mathematician - that the sunset doesn't have any poetical nor artistic vibe, and it is a concept of astronomy. I disagreed when I heard such an affirmation, because for me, the meaning of sunset goes beyond than just 'the distortion of sunlight rays'.
To be honest with you, when I appreciate the sunset of my city I want to cry. This crying is not a cause of sadness, but the sublime artistic sense of the sunset. It is extremely beautiful, and it reminds me of experiences which I will no longer live again, but I am happy for passed them by.
Artistically speaking, I am know some poems about autumn and sunset. Some paintings too. What I attempt to explain is that a sunset gives us some vibes which awaken our emotions. And these were well shown by some poets and painters: - artists in overall -
The Korean poet Oh Sae-Young expresses what is the mood of autumn in the following poem: I feel like crying / as the sun sets on the mountains / You are nowhere, and you are everywhere / I hear your voice / but when I return to this world / I only hear the murmur of the breeze / The murmur of leaves dried by the wind.
I consider the sunset as a pure artistic manifestation. What do you think? And what do you feel when the sun disappears every afternoon?
Van Gogh: 'Autumn landscape in the evening'
A few years ago, I heard from a girl who is a mathematician - that the sunset doesn't have any poetical nor artistic vibe, and it is a concept of astronomy. I disagreed when I heard such an affirmation, because for me, the meaning of sunset goes beyond than just 'the distortion of sunlight rays'.
To be honest with you, when I appreciate the sunset of my city I want to cry. This crying is not a cause of sadness, but the sublime artistic sense of the sunset. It is extremely beautiful, and it reminds me of experiences which I will no longer live again, but I am happy for passed them by.
Artistically speaking, I am know some poems about autumn and sunset. Some paintings too. What I attempt to explain is that a sunset gives us some vibes which awaken our emotions. And these were well shown by some poets and painters: - artists in overall -
The Korean poet Oh Sae-Young expresses what is the mood of autumn in the following poem: I feel like crying / as the sun sets on the mountains / You are nowhere, and you are everywhere / I hear your voice / but when I return to this world / I only hear the murmur of the breeze / The murmur of leaves dried by the wind.
I consider the sunset as a pure artistic manifestation. What do you think? And what do you feel when the sun disappears every afternoon?
Van Gogh: 'Autumn landscape in the evening'
Comments (41)
I would include the artistry of sunrise, especially as I live in a hilly region where shadows form in unpredictable patterns. As we drive along the highway, the world changes from moment to moment.
(I do love that picture! I wish you could hang it in your bedroom: the palette is just right.)
The larches turn gold;/ another year is ending, / sunsets burn brightly
I can imagine that beautiful perspective. If you live in a hilly region, the colours and shadows of nature are more authentic, and they are not interrupted by the surroundings of the city.
Quoting Vera Mont
I have never seen that painting by Van Gogh until today! I was looking for autumn paintings, and the most recommended by Google art.
Quoting Vera Mont
Good! Exquisite! Gorgeous! Is this poem yours? :smile:
Yes: we were going into town one morning. Larches are my favourite tree and they're magnificent in October. Almost bare now.
They are very beautiful tree. Its leaves turn into gold and ochre colours, creating an artistic overview.
Quoting Vera Mont
And then, yes, this is one of the main issues. When the trees start to get bare because winter is approaching... I don't mind when trees get bared and the leaves are on the floor. It gives another mood. I would say, melancholy.
For me, there is a particularly sad association with weeping willows - my late mother's favourite tree.
Van Gogh was especially attracted to cypresses and olives, presumably because of their visual drama. I've thought about how and when we form these attachments to a particular tree. In my mother's case, she grew up by a river fringed with willows and spent many happy hours in their shade, before WWII altered her life and her world. I saw my first larch at 14, when we bought a little property in rural Ontario. I was captivated by their gentleness compared to the pines and spruces they resemble, their silence and their changes of colour over the season.
I had an inkling from that story I liked so much.
We have some elms in the fence-line of our property, but they're all dying. We've had to cut two down before they fell on the greenhouse. It's a beautiful hard wood, even in death.
Please don't assume mathematicians are like this in general. Among then you will find musicians and artists. We are not bean counters. :cool:
I'm sad for people who don't appreciate beauty or humour - they're missing the best of life on this planet; I always hope they'll wake from their coma.
I agree. Sorry for being so generic, it is true that amongst mathematicians, there also some who like art, poetry, literature as much as science. Like you, jgill, for instance. The first thing that I thought about this girl was that she was a bit arrogant, but maybe she was just trying to explain the scientific reason for the sunset.
Quoting Vera Mont
We were very young, indeed. This happened around 2015 and the students of our campus were in the first year of our careers, so we were between 18 and 19 years old. Maybe, she is a different woman after 8 years...
Quoting Vera Mont
Quoting javi2541997
Quoting javi2541997
I'm using all this as an excuse to write about trees I like...
My favourite kind of tree is the pine. It's partly to do with the beautiful coastal pine forests of the Mediterranean, which I experienced at about ten years old on holiday in Catalonia and never forgot. Later I found similar forests along the cote d'azur, in Turkey, and other spots around the Mediterranean. In my thirties I started hiking and discovered what's left of the Caledonian forests in the Highlands of my native Scotland, and then had some special moments sheltering under umbrella pines in Rome. More recently, I had a couple of big sprawling pine trees in my garden in Spain, which harboured a small ecosystem of beasts and birds.
I also like holm oaks, maybe because I only discovered them in 2016. I had not known that evergreen oak trees existed, then in January that year I went for a hike in the mountains behind Nice and walked for hours through forests of oak trees that, to my surprise, still had their leaves. Also very common in Spain, mostly non-existent in more Northern regions.
Beech trees I like because my childhood was spent roaming beech woods. Beech forests are particularly beautiful and I think of them as quintessentially Northern European--the perfect setting for Celtic myths and other such spookiness--but europeanbeechforests.org tells me they're also very common in Italy, the Balkans, and other parts of Southern and Eastern Europe.
Other top trees: horse-chestnut, birch, and cedar (both the Cedrus of Eurasia and the western cedars of British Columbia).
Quoting javi2541997
I think I'm more of a sunrise man :grin: But I love that VvG painting, which I hadn't seen before.
Pines are beautiful trees too, and I understand your reference to Mediterranean forests. When I was a kid, I used to go to Guardamar on holidays and there was a big fine forest. It has passed ten years since the last time I went to Guardamar, and I only hope that the pine forest is still conserved as much as I remember.
Quoting Jamal
:up:
I don't have a garden specifically, because I live in the average building with flats, but in the yard we have willows. They get very beautiful in autumn. Surprisingly, we have one palm tree, and I don't understand why it can survive in the weather and environment of Madrid.
Quoting Jamal
Ha! I am the opposite. I love rainy, cloudy and dark days. I remember one day, I was in the pharmacy, and it was raining so heavily, and then I shouted: Madrid looks so poetic and beautiful in days like these!!! And the people observe like I were a crazy folk
There is a certain magic about pine trees. When I was ten, we spent some eight months in Ireland, in a military base. It had along one perimeter a triple row of great tall scotch pines. Easy to climb, a deep cushion of brown needles on the floor in case you fall, and you never quite get the resin or the scent out of your clothes. To my little gang of outlaws, that was Sherwood Forest. It was a time and place out of real life; an interval of total, joyous freedom. Thanks for reminding me!
December 17, 1999. The Hydra A galaxy cluster is really big. In fact, such clusters of galaxies are the largest gravitationally bound objects in the Universe. But individual galaxies are too cool to be recorded in this false-color Chandra Observatory X-ray image which shows only the 40 million degree gas that permeates the Hydra A cluster.
I have two big books of astronomy photos that I've used as models for paintings for my SO's office wall. (He's a physicist and big fan of Carl Sagan). Nebulae are especially stunning.
Beautiful sunset. It doesn't make me feel like crying, but I smile whenever an explosion of crimson/salmon color so low that it's literally a backdrop of an otherwise plain road and buildings stops me in the middle of the road.
Quoting Jamal
Good choice!
Quoting Jamal
I've seen this done in the front yard of an apartment building. The landscaper literally trained 3 pine trees to grow lying down then curving upward. You've got to have a lot of space for this. lol.
Quoting Jamal
They're mesmerizing.
Exactly! You described it perfectly, and better than me. Your text is very poetic. I wanted to share a similar feeling this week in this thread, but I forgot it. When I get out of the building I work and study in, it is around 17:30 pm or even 18:00. The sun is in the last moments of the day, and it reflects coloured ochre rays in the windows of the building. It gives me a sweet feeling of melancholia.
On the other hand, there is also a good view at the parks. The sunlight rays make shadows on the silhouette of the trees. Ah, very poetic and artistic.
I cannot always leave the building in time so that I am there to witness the explosion. It's a grand show, no tickets needed.
Quoting Vera Mont
The break of dawn is equally beautiful. I actually prefer the break of dawn, but for this, you need to have an unobstructed view of the mountain.
Quoting Vera Mont
I am happy to share my admiration of sunset with you, mates. I knew there would be members who would appreciate this gift from nature. I had to go to a mortuary yesterday. It is far from the centre of Madrid, and it is located in a zone where you can see all the sky, no buildings interrupt. The mortuary started at 16:00, and I left around 18:05, when the sky started to become a blurred orange and purple colour. I regret not taking a photo...
Are you studying pathology?
The sky is never the same on a small photograph. On a cinema screen, not bad.
You kind of reminded me to give more play to sunsets in the novel I've just started. Before, I was a little preoccupied with sunrise; this one takes place in the north-west of England - lots of hills and water, and no city lights. I wish I could go there to see what the light is actually like, but will have to settle for pictures. Don't we just love Google?
No, I am a lawyer, and I am eventually studying to become a land registrar. I studied law at university between 2015 - 2019. :smile:
Quoting Vera Mont
I hope this basic and little thread gives you some inspiration for your novels or writings - if you are considering writing a new one! -
Quoting Vera Mont
I agree! Google Maps and Images are one of the best inventions ever. Thanks to these, I am able to see Japanese landscapes which I will never see in real life, probably...
Just as I certainly will never see Cumbria. Or Oceania, where some of my last novel took place. The satellite images are priceless!
I can confirm. My best stargazing experience was in the Lake District, floating face-up in Derwent Water some time after midnight in the summer of 99.
Mind you, some parts of rural Ontario are none too shabby, either. There is a little observatory north of Wiarton, where some great summer skies are to be seen ... if you don't mind being eaten alive by mosquitoes.
We live on the east side of a highway, facing the sunset over fields - not bad - with thickly wooded low hills behind us. Not much for sunrises, but I saw a moonrise once (c1999) that almost had me calling out the fire department, it looked so much like the start of a forest fire.
Both rural Ontario and the moonrise sound great. I think I might want to live in the country one day myself. If it was one of those massive orange moonrises that catches you unawares and takes your breath away, yeah, I love those. But I've seldom seen it precisely as it was rising above the horizon; usually there are things in the way.
In our case, tall pine trees. In late September sometimes, that enormous harvest moon rises up out of the forest, quite slowly at first, majestically, then recedes as it ascends the sky. That year, it was a dark orange-red, and bigger than usual. I've never seen another one like it.
Once in a while, when conditions are favourable, we get a glimpse of the Northern Lights sometime in October.
From now till March, though, it's just brief restrained sunsets and no sunrise at all - by the time I wake up, there is a diffuse cold grey light with no character at all. Today, it seem to be persisting all day. Beats freezing rain, I guess, but the solar panels are hungry.
I tend to call that "Scottish weather" but I guess it's not unique to us.
I call it November weather. Ah, but we have beautiful Aprils!
Let me explain myself better: the sun is obviously the same always. However, I sense that its sunlight rays and shadows on the street are not the same. Madrid is cloudier in January than in October, November, and December. For this reason, I hardly see the ochre-colored reflections in the windows or showcases.
I was lucky to see the sun setting yesterday because it is usually covered by the clouds...
Of course it is. The same sun's rays hit different parts of the earth at different angles and intensities at every minute as the Earth orbits and rotates, while the atmospheric conditions also keep changing.
Well, Vera, thank you for the scientific explanation. But I was actually referring to the artistic side. When I walk in the park (it is the path I use every day during the year, as well as public transport) I notice the sun is more vivid. It is orange instead of ochre or golden. I miss that when I am walking back home, my loyal shadow follows me. Although January is cold and cloudy, we tend to have sunny days (we never get into winter that deeply as Sweden or Canada), and then I notice the sun is shiner than before, exactly because of what you explained. I have to wait nine or ten months to see the ochre-coloured sun again...
I have only three before my favourite spring twilights begin. In between, we're likely to have opaque veils of snow blowing across the road, dark dismal days, freezing rain, slush, fog... everything we least desire. But there is beauty in northern winters, too: brilliant ice-crusted mornings and clear sunny days with bright blue sky over virginal snow-fields...
:D I had the same thought at first
The one unequivocally beautiful thing in the plains is the sky. I've enjoyed reading the imagery here because I've seen it many times over.
And here too -- another image I can connect to.
I don't know... I've spent some quality time in the prairies. True, that unbelievably big dome of sky can be enchanting whether it's high and clear or building up a mountain of clouds on the horizon. But I also like the oceans of grain and grass, and the whispering poplars and changing colours. Wherever you are, you can find something beautiful - even in big cities.
So, it seems spring is your favorite season!
I see winter and autumn as perfect for poetry and literature. It is just my opinion, but its sense of nostalgia, cold, rainy days, etc. motivates me more than the endless sunny summer days
No, I like early summer best. June, when the landscape is as green as it can possibly get, flowers bloom in profusion, my tomatoes and peppers are growing nicely, the cucumbers haven't got powdery mildew yet, the birds are teaching their fledglings to fly and we can have breakfast on the deck.
But for sheer, heartbreaking beauty, there is nothing like an April sunset. ...
except maybe that Andalusian filly I watched playing in a meadow one late afternoon. My word, that was one gorgeous horse: every line, every toss of the mane, every step was a poem.
This photo was taken from the balcony of my house after a heavy rain. The clouds seem to be angry, outrageous, violent. Although the ochre colored sunlight does his job and evokes a sense of nostalgia, it lasted just an hour, while the rain fell incessantly.
It reminds me of a poem by the Swedish poet Harry Martinson:
[i]Have you seen a tramp collier come out of a hurricane
with broken booms, gunwales shot to pieces,
crumpled, gasping, come to grief
and her captain gone all hoarse?
Snorting, she puts in at the sunlit wharf,
exhausted, licking her wounds
while the steam thins in her boilers.[/i] Harry Martinson. Poetry.
Fifty nine days remain until
the end of the year.
The sun is set on the horizon
and I remember Valencia.
Sweeter grapes than the ones
of my kitchen I cant imagine of.
I got them from a poet from Paiporta.
He saidI now feel nostalgia for him
But he said grapes like these are only
grown near Albufera.
I put my coat on
because it is cold outside.
I start to walk until I arrive at the sunset,
remembering Valencia and
the poet from Paiporta.