Image of the Week: Balsam Mountain, Winter
© D. Yael Bernhard
Here's my first painting of 2023 – done on New Year's Day from beginning to end – a personal tradition I enjoy very much. What better way to start the new year than to indulge in painting for pleasure?
This snowscape shows the summit of Balsam Mountain, as seen from a friend's house in Hardenburgh, NY – a town with a population of 221 people and some of the best hiking trails in the Catskills. At 3600 feet, Balsam Mountain isn't the highest peak in the region, but has a steep ascent and stunning views. I used a cell phone photo taken last week as reference – of rather poor quality, which suits me fine. Crude photos force an artist to interpret rather than copy a scene. That's the whole point of landscape painting – to create something other or more than reality. I strive to capture the spirit of a place, the contour of the land, the quality of the atmosphere – not to act as a human camera.
Winter is harsh in the mountains, but its textures are surprisingly soft. I began by laying down fields of muted purples, blues and mauves, graduating to steel grey and icy pale blue. I spent several hours happily building and blending these textures. The color thins out toward the horizon. Paradoxically, this massive mountain is the most ethereal object in the painting, barely distinguishable from the sky.
Then came my favorite part – the lacy black trees in the foreground, standing like a wrought iron curtain, adding detail and forging a relationship between line and tone, near and far. I love painting a distant view through something close at hand, whether a window, trees, or a few stalks of lilies. The contrast of scale brings a delicious tension into the painting.
The painting is done in acrylics on a canvas 24" wide x12" high. I would have preferred to paint in oils, but time didn't allow for that; only acrylics dry quick enough to finish an entire painting in one day. Last spring I started an oil painting of this same scene, but didn't have time to finish it. I'm planning to go back and finish it en plein air when the same spring color emerges again this May. The mountain will wait patiently for the seasonal change of palette.
With its gently curved profile, it's easy to imagine Balsam Mountain as an immense living being, unimaginably ancient, silent and humble. Indigenous tribes who first populated this area may have agreed. From such a perspective, my fleeting interaction with this imposing giant is insignificant. The Catskills were formed 350 million years ago by the erosion of a plateau by glaciers. If this mountain were alive, it would be witness to a span of evolution the human mind can scarcely grasp. Yet art transcends time by capturing a moment in form. This moment passed quickly – by the next day, the mountain already looked different. Though it changes at a different speed and scale than we do, even a land mass that large is subject to the passage of time.
Such is my pondering as I paint – suspended in a timeless afternoon of color, shape, and texture.
I shall have to put Balsam Mountain on my list of mountains to hike this year! That will complete the story of this painting – and no doubt inspire another. Anyone local care to join me?
A good week and a good year to all!
D Yael Bernhard