No Far Horizon

Afton Oaks, oil on panel, 12 x 16 private collection
Copyright Peter Bougie 2011

The title of this painting is “Afton Oaks”, because it was painted in the countryside near Afton, Minnesota; Washington County, on the west side of the lower St. Croix river.  Standing at this spot, I might turn around and see a long, expansive horizon comprised of territory in Wisconsin, the farmland and wooded hillsides west of the ridge bordering the northwest side of the Kinnikinic river gorge. On a day like the one when this picture was painted, that scene would seem exceptionally still, various shades of snowy blue and white, the very definition of winter glare.

Detail, Afton Oaks
Copyright Peter Bougie 2011
I made the tracks in the snow to provide a visual entry into the picture.

Perhaps I should have called this painting “No Far Horizon”. The viewpoint is low, caught up in the tangle of burr oak tree limbs and some indefinite undergrowth, probably buckthorn, an aggressive invasive. The light beyond the trees is the slope ascending the opposite side of the ravine. There are a few tracks leading into a broad, empty foreground and then stopping, as if someone had thought better of going on. This is the snow of deep winter. It has descended in several falls, and between each fall a deep freeze, so none of it has melted. When you walk in it, your foot punches down through soft snow until it nears the bottom and the snow under your foot compresses into a mass, at which point your foot might slip a bit, or not. Walking in the stuff requires a lot of effort. Snow might find its way into your shoes, if you haven’t dressed properly, and then you have wet feet, which you really don’t want. You pay for carelessness in the winter, not only in discomfort but possibly with frostbite, for starters. Cross country skis and snow shoes were developed to take advantage of conditions like these. Lots of people like to engage in that kind of recreation. “Fight the cold with the cold’s weapons” – with the cold itself, hardening yourself against it, and with activities that pump the blood around.

Some people suffer from a lack of sunlight at these near boreal latitudes. Those who can afford to travel to sunny warm places, do. Who cannot, must endure. I know someone who goes frequently to a public library which has banks of broad south facing windows through which a glory of sunlight pours, while clear weather and day light last. I sympathize; one interior image I have of dreary, ongoing winter is of being on the freeway when it is most the definition of captivity, during a snowfall, and all is colored in shades of gray, and my leg is cramping from riding the clutch for thirty or forty minutes, having to shift frequently from first to second gear and back down again, while traveling at little more than walking speed.

No far horizon; a viewpoint constricted by a certain type of reality. Another aspect of the particular reality here is the glare of the sun on the snow. I keep my gaze down because when I lift it I begin to be blinded in the glare. I recently wrote to a friend in an email that when I have dreadful recollections of winter in July or August, the first thing that usually comes to mind is the blinding, oppressive glare of the sun on the snow of a clear day. (I never made any decision about this; it's an instance of existential nausea.) You can experience that around here (in the upper Midwestern United States) from November even into April, but most years you will see it in January, February and March. If you see it in March - and you won’t see it every March - you might think how tired of it you are but take comfort in knowing that it can’t last very much longer. You will soon be delighted by the warmth of an ascending sun, and the sounds of trickling water. When you see it in January – and you will almost always see it in January – you will see it knowing that there is no way over, around or beneath it; only through it.

Afton Oaks, detail
Copyright Peter Bougie 2011