Here Comes The Sun
- Theartist Henley
- Jan 10, 2022
- 3 min read
Updated: Mar 21, 2023
Yellow is my favorite color. When I was a kid, it was orange. I've always liked colors on the warmer end of the spectrum. Colors on this end of the spectrum-red, orange, yellow- are said to evoke feelings ranging from warmth, comfort, and mild hunger to anger and hostility. Sometimes, these colors are often said to stimulate our sexuality. For my part, I always preferred the warmth and comfort focus. After all, yellow, golden yellow, is the color of the sun, our life giving sun.
I won't go into all the scientific stuff about the sun - I won't tell you about how this middle-aged star in the center of our solar system accounts for some 99.8 percent of all mass in our aforementioned solar system. I also won't mention that our yellow ( there's that word yellow again) dwarf star converts 4 million tons of matter to energy every second. Every second. No, I won't mention any of these scientific facts. But when you consider these and other facts, you truly understand why some in ancient times worshipped the sun as a deity.
January 2022 is here, and if you've noticed, the days have slowly begun to lengthen. Christmas 2021 with its requisite ruckus is over, but the date December 25th has more to do with the sun than the birth of Christ. The actual date of birth of Jesus Christ isn't mentioned in the Bible. This date from the ancient Roman calendar was incorporated by fourth century Christendom into the Christmas tradition and really picked up steam in the 19th century. The Romans observed the 25th of December as the Winter Solstice, after which the days gradually grew longer.
Of course, we need to get through these winter months before spring finally arrives. While we wait, we can talk about some sun-inspired art.
First up, we have a somewhat famous painting by one of my personal favorite artists, Claude Monet. His painting, Impression. Sunrise in 1872 is said to be responsible for naming the Impressionism style.
The scene is sunrise over Le Havre, a seaport in France where the river Siene meets the English Channel. It was a scene Monet often saw in his hometown. This is one of six pieces depicting the port at different times of day.
The Sun, by Edvard Munch is another notable sun painting. Munch is better known for the Scream, arguably his most famous work. Truth be told, I didn't even know this piece existed until I did the research on sun paintings. In this Van Gogh-esque piece an incredibly radiant sun tremendously dominates the landscape. When viewing this, it would easy to mistake Munch for a sun-worshipper himself.
In my own art, the I've represented the sun a bit. in The Creation of Eve, the sun has a prominent place, even if not the most prominent. If you're curious about why I put the sun in such a piece at all, just see my last post. My piece the SunFlower, while not exactly the sun itself, still holds a yellow, sun-like image that dominates the scene.
My current painting, 'Sun Eater' began as this incomplete composition above. I wasn't happy with the way it was turning out, so I decided to go in a somewhat different direction. I liked the colors in this piece; it's dominated by my favorite color and the sun holds a prominent place and in the future, I may yet complete it at a later date but in the meantime I have this:
Actually, this one still somewhat incomplete as well; there a few things I need to touch up but I posted it here to show how it too, represents the sun. I also threw in an homage to van Gogh's Starry Night ; it's a much larger canvas than the previous one so I could take advantage of the extra space here.
I've taken up enough of your sunny day; so before spring comes, I'll leave you with this:
See you guys in the next one.
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