In Between (The Blue Hour) ©John O’Grady 2015
Oil on deep edged canvas 20″ x 20″ x 1.75″ / 50 cm x 50 cm x 4.75cm
It does not require framing and is ready to hang.
Not for Sale
The time and place when we are just on the edge of something is only a slither of space, a moment.
It is a special time when the realisation of the seconds passing can be fully brought into clear focus.
The passage from light to dark, while on the cusp between the solidity of land and the liquidity of water is one of these special moments in the day.
These in-between moments, so brief they are easy to miss, straddle the material and the immaterial.
I wanted to convey the feeling of standing at the edge when the last light has just touched the tops of the mountains and in a few moments all will be shrouded in darkness while the roar of the ocean fills our perception.
One sense replaces another.
I’d love to read your comment.
There is a heart-stopping vintage perfume by Guerlain called l’Heure Bleue (“the Blue Hour”) which evokes this feeling — elusive, but penetrating, wistful, aching. A breath of a moment that hovers and vanishes. Sadly the fragrance has been “modernized,” and ruined — but I remember its great beauty and power, and the emotion it arouses, when I look at this stunning piece.
Hello Josephine, what a fabulous name for a perfume and possibly a title for a painting ‘The Blue Hour’ it sounds fabulous and to think that you connected the perfume with my painting and the emotions it evoked is gratifying, thank you.
Again I’m intrigued by the way you limn transitions of time and space — and even of the senses here. These things are so ephemeral, but you manage always to capture the feeling and atmosphere.
Thank you Josephine, it’s interesting how a fixed 2D space might be able to hold an atmosphere and capture the shifting of time and space , where film/video might come more readily to mind in lending itself to a temporal description. I think painting might do this by holding the fixed gaze of the viewer and offering a viewpoint of another world where feelings might be distilled. Film of course can do this to but there is something particular to painting in that fixed viewpoint, don’t you think? I am not that good in finding the words but maybe a painting such as a late Bonnard where the air, atmosphere, mood is palpable, how does he do that! That is where I think the pay dirt is, anyway I am digging away. You mentioned before that these landscapes could be seen perhaps as self portraits. Perhaps that is it.
The emotion of the in-between state has been beautifully conveyed for me by the softness of the painting. I particularly like the way you have used colour to capture the fleeting moment you describe so well, starting with the pink hint of the setting sun on the mountain tops and moving down to the blurring of the two and then into the deeper reds in the bottom right; as if darkness is literally descending. Lovely John.
Hello Christine,
Thank you for your insights on the painting. It does seem to move from lightness at the top through to the dark reds at the bottom but I never planned or noticed this until you mentioned it, the softness of certain areas give it an uncertain feeling or lack of clarity I think.