Oh That Glow...(not Al's bald head)
nick cobb
Oh That Glow. White Nights Beg for a Painter.
By MICHAEL WINES
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — "St. Petersburg has an aura of its own," says
Aleksandr A. Dalmatov. "Even the stones laid by people who built this
city many years ago produce this sort of glowing effect. Not
everywhere. But there are places where you can see this glow."
Mr. Dalmatov also glows. Clad in an orange jacket, magenta crew neck
shirt and pastel green pants, he stands in his studio in one of St.
Petersburg's tumbledown apartment blocks — a seventh-floor studio,
where the light is best — surrounded by perhaps a hundred of his
paintings.
Most of them glow, too. There are scenes of the city's old port set
beneath mother-of-pearl skies, and portraits of luminous
prerevolutionary buildings and Orthodox church cupolas and boat-filled
canals. All of them were painted in the outdoors. "And that's a
problem," he said. "I have to catch the same light many times to
finish a painting."
The French Impressionists had the unique light of the French
Mediterranean seacoast. Mr. Dalmatov and other St. Petersburg painters
have white nights, a period when the sun does not set so much as sit,
perching just below the horizon for a brief rest before starting the
arduous climb back into the sky.
There is no white-night school of painting in St. Petersburg — not
now, anyway. A group of romanticists here devoted almost all their art
to the theme of white nights at the turn of the 20th century, until
romanticism was supplanted by Soviet realism.
Indeed, Mr. Dalmatov, a quirky sort, dismisses many of the city's
3,000 artists as hacks who "just make copies of other paintings, even
postcards."
Maybe so. But among serious painters, the unearthly glow that washes
over this city each summer has an indisputable effect — hard for some
to describe, different for each artist, but visible on the canvas,
just the same.
"It's like in music — there's always the main theme and the
leitmotif," Abram G. Raskin, a noted St. Petersburg art critic, said
in a telephone interview. "And it's the same with St. Petersburg white
nights. On the canvas, you can see this silvery, cloudy color which
goes through all the works produced at this time."
One could say that white nights — which begin in late May and peak on
June 21, the summer solstice — are nothing more than an extended
version of sunrise or sunset. One could also say that they are not
unique to St. Petersburg: above about 60 degrees latitude, most any
location experiences round-the-clock daytime at summer's peak, thanks
to the canted angle of the earth as it spins around the sun.
But that does St. Petersburg's phenomenon neither emotional nor
scientific justice. As Mr. Dalmatov says, parts of St. Petersburg do
glow — an eerie phosphorescence that seems only to increase as the sun
dips lower and the shadows lengthen, and that makes buildings seem
almost to pop out of their locations against the dusky skies.
"The same effect can be seen in Norway at the same latitude, and I
myself have seen it," said Yuri M. Timofeyev, who holds a chair in
physics of the atmosphere at St. Petersburg University. "But to an
artist, it's not just the effect of the light, but its effect on
buildings which have great architecture. And the effect is especially
great when you are on the bank of an especially big river in a great
city."
Mr. Timofeyev, the author of "Theoretical Basis of Atmospheric
Optics," explained white nights in a telephone conversation something
like this: Come summer, the sun's rays slice into northern Russia at
an acute angle, meaning they must pass through more atmosphere to
reach the ground. All those air molecules scatter the shorter
wavelengths of light, heightening the blues and grays. All the dust in
the air scatters longer wavelengths, adding a pinkish cast.
Add to that the fact that the light is indirect, coming from just
below the horizon, and that it is further reflected by the River Neva
and the nearby Gulf of Finland, and one result is the otherworldly
luminescence and silvery skies of post-midnight Petersburg. "If there
were no water and all the light was being reflected off asphalt, the
result would be entirely different," he said. As it is, the effect is
only heightened by the colors of St. Petersburg monuments and palaces
— bright pastel yellows, greens and blues topped by acres of gold leaf
and silvery tin.
But that is science, not art. Ask an artist, and he often quotes
Pushkin's poetic rumination on St. Petersburg, "The Bronze Horseman,"
which speaks of "thy transparent twilight darkling" and the
impossibility of dousing "the golden cloudland of the light/for soon
one dawn succeeds another/with barely half an hour of night."
Al
work. I've learned that it is best to leave alone God's plan for
disappearing hair!! :-)
Al
ni...@cris.com (nick cobb) wrote in message news:<b6548fc4.03061...@posting.google.com>...
> June 19, 2003
> Oh That Glow. White Nights Beg for a Painter.
> By MICHAEL WINES
>
> ST. PETERSBURG, Russia ? "St. Petersburg has an aura of its own," says
> Aleksandr A. Dalmatov. "Even the stones laid by people who built this
> city many years ago produce this sort of glowing effect. Not
> everywhere. But there are places where you can see this glow."
>
> Mr. Dalmatov also glows. Clad in an orange jacket, magenta crew neck
> shirt and pastel green pants, he stands in his studio in one of St.
> Petersburg's tumbledown apartment blocks ? a seventh-floor studio,
> where the light is best ? surrounded by perhaps a hundred of his
> paintings.
>
> Most of them glow, too. There are scenes of the city's old port set
> beneath mother-of-pearl skies, and portraits of luminous
> prerevolutionary buildings and Orthodox church cupolas and boat-filled
> canals. All of them were painted in the outdoors. "And that's a
> problem," he said. "I have to catch the same light many times to
> finish a painting."
>
> The French Impressionists had the unique light of the French
> Mediterranean seacoast. Mr. Dalmatov and other St. Petersburg painters
> have white nights, a period when the sun does not set so much as sit,
> perching just below the horizon for a brief rest before starting the
> arduous climb back into the sky.
>
> There is no white-night school of painting in St. Petersburg ? not
> now, anyway. A group of romanticists here devoted almost all their art
> to the theme of white nights at the turn of the 20th century, until
> romanticism was supplanted by Soviet realism.
>
> Indeed, Mr. Dalmatov, a quirky sort, dismisses many of the city's
> 3,000 artists as hacks who "just make copies of other paintings, even
> postcards."
>
> Maybe so. But among serious painters, the unearthly glow that washes
> over this city each summer has an indisputable effect ? hard for some
> to describe, different for each artist, but visible on the canvas,
> just the same.
>
> "It's like in music ? there's always the main theme and the
> leitmotif," Abram G. Raskin, a noted St. Petersburg art critic, said
> in a telephone interview. "And it's the same with St. Petersburg white
> nights. On the canvas, you can see this silvery, cloudy color which
> goes through all the works produced at this time."
>
> One could say that white nights ? which begin in late May and peak on
> June 21, the summer solstice ? are nothing more than an extended
> version of sunrise or sunset. One could also say that they are not
> unique to St. Petersburg: above about 60 degrees latitude, most any
> location experiences round-the-clock daytime at summer's peak, thanks
> to the canted angle of the earth as it spins around the sun.
>
> But that does St. Petersburg's phenomenon neither emotional nor
> scientific justice. As Mr. Dalmatov says, parts of St. Petersburg do
> glow ? an eerie phosphorescence that seems only to increase as the sun
> dips lower and the shadows lengthen, and that makes buildings seem
> almost to pop out of their locations against the dusky skies.
>
> "The same effect can be seen in Norway at the same latitude, and I
> myself have seen it," said Yuri M. Timofeyev, who holds a chair in
> physics of the atmosphere at St. Petersburg University. "But to an
> artist, it's not just the effect of the light, but its effect on
> buildings which have great architecture. And the effect is especially
> great when you are on the bank of an especially big river in a great
> city."
>
> Mr. Timofeyev, the author of "Theoretical Basis of Atmospheric
> Optics," explained white nights in a telephone conversation something
> like this: Come summer, the sun's rays slice into northern Russia at
> an acute angle, meaning they must pass through more atmosphere to
> reach the ground. All those air molecules scatter the shorter
> wavelengths of light, heightening the blues and grays. All the dust in
> the air scatters longer wavelengths, adding a pinkish cast.
>
> Add to that the fact that the light is indirect, coming from just
> below the horizon, and that it is further reflected by the River Neva
> and the nearby Gulf of Finland, and one result is the otherworldly
> luminescence and silvery skies of post-midnight Petersburg. "If there
> were no water and all the light was being reflected off asphalt, the
> result would be entirely different," he said. As it is, the effect is
> only heightened by the colors of St. Petersburg monuments and palaces
> ? bright pastel yellows, greens and blues topped by acres of gold leaf
digimortal
"Al" <aggr...@netscape.net> wrote in message
news:df4e6c04.03062...@posting.google.com...
Al Green
Thrice Holy <G><G><G>
Al
"digimortal" <digim...@starpower.net> wrote in message
news:bcvh9q$4lj$1...@bob.news.rcn.net...
++
Al Green wrote:
> Mother Gail, our Net Nanny, bring it outta me!!
If you are discussing hair, you cannot do anything but arrest its leaving and
possibly get a little of it back. For that, I have seen the efficacy of B-50
vitamins and additional Lecithin work quite relative on one of two twins . He
has a sort of western Cappuchin kind of pate while the twin has almost no hair
at all.
Who cares, anyway. Bald heads can be rather nice looking
Al
Thankfully, I havden't reached the point where there is total baldness
with my pate looking as if it had been shined by a shoe buffer. :-)
Al