More Light

One beautiful German word is "Abendstimmung", which would translate as "evening mood", although in German it has a bit more gravitas I think. Funny, I can't think of a good Turkish word or phrase that would express that mood. That's the beauty of languages; each has its own landscape of meanings that correspond to the cultural cosmos of the people speaking it. Anyway, back to Abendstimmung. Three years ago I visited an exhibition called "More Light" ("Mehr Licht" in German) in Düsseldorf's Kunstpalast, which explored 19th century oil studies in open nature. There I saw this painting by Carl Robert Kummer titled "Abendstimmung an der Elbe", depicting an evening scene at the river Elbe in Dresden. I was so impressed, I had a hard time moving on to other paintings, and even came back to it several times, studying it further.

The clouds, especially the ones on the diagonal, the silvery water, and that bold arc of the river...what an inspirational painting. 

Just like those 19th century romantic painters, I guess many of us try to make our own Abendstimmungs when the evening light starts to shift to the purples and reds, right? Well, here are two of my humble attempts made along the Rhine last year.

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A major exhibition usually has an exhibition catalogue; I try not to miss those. They tend to have loads of informational essays and one can enjoy the paintings (or photos etc.), although in admittedly inferior reproduction, for many more years. Look, the lovely small Elbe painting even made it to the cover of this catalogue!