Hi all,

Finally, after a summer of laziness, a new painting.

This one is a scene from a recent family trip to Zermatt (“weekend wander” entry to follow). The scene itself is a view taken from the top of the Rothorn station, facing out just a bit to the right of the glacier there. Being early autumn, a hint of orange and yellow was showing in the scrub just above the tree line. It was a beautiful, almost-cloud-free day and I was itching to hike. Sadly, this was not a possibility as the kids were with and we were due to leave in an hour or two. No matter. We had fun at the kids adventure playground there and I have this painting as a souvenir.

Interestingly, a friend found a postcard of a Ferdinand Hodler landscape that looked incredibly similar in terms of the palette and treatment of the mountains. Hodler is one of the most famous of all swiss painters and his spare alpine paintings were arguably his most well known. I had been to a showing of some of his works at the Fondation Beyeler Museum near Basel so perhaps they made a bigger impression than I thought (the show did not move me much). Hmm. Perhaps there is something essentially “swiss” about the mountains in Switzerland that leads one to paint them this way? In any event it spells a bit of departure from my usual Canadian landscape Group of Seven mimicry.  I won’t make a habit of it though. Painting continually in blues and yellows would make me a bit crazy. Anyhow, here it is. I am not unhappy with it.

Yours, HD