RSW's Diary Comments

Where Glaciers Passed Sepia

"Painted in 1938. A painting of wild, dramatic flat mountain tops (hence the name suggested by cousin Flora White) and deep valleys, a small mountain farm house on a foreground slope, an arc of the Deerfield River, down in the deep Hoosac Tunnel valley, gleaming white. A sky of gray interlaced cloud, topping half of the canvas. A very impressive painting of which I am proud, yet in general, not a popular canvas."

Comments on the back of a sepia print:

"Another hard-to-describe November landscape. Mountains very rich in violets, blues, tawny-rose and dull yellows. Flash of red in farm house silo, buildings weathered gray. Right foreground corner luminous green gold. Sky dramatic yet subtle, with white, grays and creams, outbreaks of blue at top. Painted at the top of Hoosac Mountains. Hills are blue, violet, purple, sky a delicate mackerel sky."

A mackerel sky is a reference to the fish's
scale/skin pattern along its spine matching
the pattern of the clouds, not their color.

Additional Comment:

"Painted at the top of the Hoosac mountains. Hills are blue, violet, purple, sky a delicate mackerel sky."

An illustration of the difference between this
painting's sepia print and how it appears today. The
grid represents one square inch and the numbers are
self explanatory and represent the differences in inches.

Editor's Notes:

Here, to the left, we illustrate the differences between the original sepia print (black and white) and as it exist today (in color). The painting remains in the artist's estate and believe it or not, we JUST realized the difference discussing another matter entirely! We took the painting off the wall and took it out of its frame and examined the edges of the canvas and sure enough-- it is clearly cut.

Having given it some thought and discussion, we feel that Woodward's remarks about it not being popular, in the end, was probably attributed to being too much sky. The cut down version of the painting's sky is already sufficient, we could not imagine another 594 square inches (or 250% more) painting. There were times Woodward wanted you to feel what it was like to be 'on top of the world' but we feel, in this instance, the enormous size makes all else too small and thus insignificant.