Joseph Mallord William Turner.

 St. Erasmus in Bishop Islip's Chapel, Westminster Abbey. 1796.

As I stumble along in my learnings, I discover deeper layers to classics than I knew existed.

Most of JMW Turner's public and published work these days seems to focus on his later life, in pushing the edges of watercolor into new territory anticipating the development of impressionism.

Going into his actual development as a painter, I discover his explorations as a young man in capturing architecture and landscapes. He has quite a body of work in cathedrals. In 1796 he was scarcely 20 years of age.

Given where I've come to in my eighth decade, this is a find to explore further.

Hook and Moore Glade.

One day this will be underwater.

Looking north from the top of the mountain behind the saw mill.

 In the American West, water is precious.

"First in time, first in line" is the law of water rights. Its first definition came from competing demands in this very part of northern Colorado, as irrigation infrastructure from Greeley and Fort Collins vied for use of the limited waters of the Cache la Poudre watershed.

Growing population along the Front Range requires additional water supplies. Glade Reservoir. With water rights purchased nearly 40 years ago, the feasibility study for this project was completed in 2001. Planning calls for first water to be stored in 2028.

Highway 287 along this valley is our connection to Fort Collins.

Markus Brunetti Part II.

From the New York Times.

The facades are recorded one square meter at a time, from a fixed position; then these tiny images — from 1,000 to 2,000 — are painstakingly stitched together.

This work comes back to haunt me.

California Tower, at Balboa Park in San Diego.

The area here is so overgrown now, in the Southern California year-round growing season, that it's impossible to appreciate the beauty of these remains from the Panama California Exposition of 1915.

This water colors captures the spirit of the place, as I have experienced it in direct contact.

Balboa Bridges, Charles Arthur Fries, 1916

The cover of the guide book is a more photographic image, water-color as well but with a different sensibility.

 I much prefer the more impressionistic.

Edo Hannema, Watercolour Artist.

Durgerdam

Social media is the blessing and the curse of our age. One that I do not name and do not link to has expanded my universe of good art and generous artists.

Edo Hannema works from The Netherlands, showing his art, sharing his vision and his methods.

As with many watercolor artists, and particularly those in the flatlands of the world, he makes his skies more detailed and even florid than my tastes run to.

But he is also a master of simplicity.

Grace Cathedral, San Francisco.

Antonio Canal, aka Canaletto (1697-1768).

Static image / screen shot from a dynamic graphic with split-screen slider. Follow the link to use the slider.

Portraits of a city, in this case Venice, capture life in other times, other places--historical in the true sense of the word. This is beautiful history, racing through the brain on its journey straight to the heart.

Canaletto's drawing skills have been long admired. They are so accurate that the working hypothesis for his achievement at such a skilled level has been that he used a camera obscura--a kind of opaque projector that allows the artist to simply trace over an image.

Now comes infrared photography to demonstrate his use of intricate architectural drawing skills. This is talent of a different order.

His works on on exhibit these days at the Royal Collection Trust, in the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace.

Suttree.

Speak of the power of dark.

This image invites, beckons, seduces. I find myself drawn deeper and deeper, almost achingly so.

Too many words can spoil it, and I hesitate to go that direction. Let me only say this--that light shines brightest that is immersed in darkness.

An apt description of the importance of remaining in touch with the cosmos, in these historically challenging times.

[I've been unable to locate the artist for this masterful watercolor. It's the cover image on an Italian-published version of the Cormac McCarthy novel, Suttree.]

Underdrawings.

Pieter Jansz Saenredam, Dutch, 1597-1665, The Choir of the Saint Bavo in Haarlem, 1636, oil on panel

New imaging technologies are allowing discovery of the processes used in painting of Dutch masterpieces.

I've seen some earlier work on using underdrawings, and this exhibit encourages me to explore this further. It seems to be an important missing link in my understanding of how these works came to be so powerful. Layers make sense to me.

A show at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC displays some brilliant examples, and the online catalog provides a means of direct comparison of the underpaintings and the finished works.

Night run.

After a long day of meetings, by the light of an October moon I finished a seven-mile run at North Boulder Ranch.