Blue and White

The sun in late summer creates a new way for me to see the place where I live.  The light is sharp and intense and I see it in shadow angles and contrasts in the rich, vivid colors of the landscape.  I see green and gold as beautiful, but blue against white is brilliant.  I don't know what it is about the low lying sun that enhances color and produces such drama and awe-inspiring clarity. 

N.C. Wyeth

Bright and Fair, Eight Bells

1936

Blue and white have distracted me lately.  The white of clouds, boats, buildings, and waves crashing into foam against the blue of sky and sea have been striking.   Compliment blue and white with green and gold in the landscape and I see - a painting.    

Rockwell Kent

Island Village, Coast of Maine

1909

It is a quick transition from the soft, luminous atmosphere of summer to the bold, crisp qualities of land and trees and sea and sky in early autumn. 

George Bellows

The Blue Pool

1922

Mount Desert Island is a place where I "can watch the time of the world go by, from minute to minute, hour to hour, from day to day, season to season."  (Time of Wonder, Robert McCloskey)  Blue and white are like the canvas that hold the colors of the island in every moment, sometimes enhancing with Modernist richness, honesty, and expression, and sometimes reflecting Luminist softness, haziness, and tranquility.  Now is the time of Modernist boldness, late summer, and, even though this time will go by, it will be back again.      

Mark Rothko

No. 16

1961