As Autumn into Winter slips

'In his Autumn before the Winter comes Man's last mad surge of youth.' -A Town Called Alice

Nothing like the Russians when it comes to capturing the starkness of approaching Winter. Maybe this was the height of Summer over there, who knows? Seems like all their paintings look like this. Maybe that's why I love them.

This canvas entitled 'Осенью', by Maria Konstantinowna Baschkirzewa, hangs at the State Museum, St. Petersburg. My guess is that 'Осенью' is not Russian for 'Happiness'.

Here is a set I posted of 150 huge high res paintings and etchings of trees, for anyone interested.

I've been researching images for a 9' x 12' folding screen that I have been asked to do, and noticed that all the trees I've been looking at are distinctly Wintery. I'm not sure how that happened exactly as I'm not quite ready to admit that it is actually Winter yet, so here's a poem that pretty much sums it up for me.

As Summer into Autumn slips, by Emily Dickinson

As Summer into Autumn slips
And yet we sooner say
"The Summer" than "the Autumn," lest
We turn the sun away,


And almost count it an Affront
The presence to concede
Of one however lovely, not
The one that we have loved --


So we evade the charge of Years
On one attempting shy
The Circumvention of the Shaft
Of Life's Declivity.