The Vernal Equinox

Even though it feels a bit like July outside, today is the first day of Spring.

I love the change of seasons and I’m a little disappointed that we seem to have skipped spring entirely and moved right into summer. I suspect that this is an illusion and we’ll get one more snowstorm before it’s all over.

In searching through some seasonally-themed images online this evening, I happened upon the work of an American painter with whom I was totally unfamiliar, a guy by the name of Dwight William Tryon (1849 – 1925). I can’t find any reference to him in the few historical references I have lying around the house but he is represented in the collections of some major museums around the country. Like me, he has a bit of a Detroit connection in that one of his major patrons was Charles Freer, Detroit industrialist and founder of the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art.Three of his works are housed at the Detroit Institute of Arts and I’ll see if I can find them next time I’m down there.

Early Spring (Dwight William Tryon, 1913-14)

His landscapes have been described as “delicate” and that word suits me just fine. That’s how I think of spring, mostly.