Autumn in Texas?...Yeah Right Cliff Cavin

Cliff Cavin

Perdenales Autumn

36 x 36”

Oil

$5,100.00

A tall and slender cypress tree dominates the left side of Cliff Cavin’s landscape painting, Perdenales Autumn; a large three foot by three foot painting that captures the crisp air of this sweet spot outside Johnson City, Texas.

Orange, brown and Mother Nature’s autumn color palette beautifies the dying leaves of this seasonal soliloquy; one artist’s internal dialogue, pondering his unselfish painterly intentions at capturing the impressionistic and atmospheric energies of such grandiose metamorphosis – a change of landscape exuberance.

But yet, Cavin in his signatory simplifications of color, layers and swatches adds a dignifying edge to this metaphysical equinox. Yes we can also picture the brittle leaves of the Cypress breaking off and about to float and flounder down into the chilly water below. However, the artist grants permanence to this moment in time, where the water is clean of debris, a crisp flow of aquatic abundance that is unequivocally opposite of SAW’s current Stage 3 Water Restrictions.

 With shimmering reflections of fall flavor, the mirrored imagery in the water refracts and splinters, disintegrating into a hodge-podge of abstractions that Sam Francis or Jackson Pollock could truly appreciate.

Along the riverbank, clusters of Cypress gather in sagacious coniferous cliques, knowledgeable of nature’s secrets, the language of the land, and looking to keep all mysteries hidden from mankind, afraid of bulldozer vanquishments, destruction, and clear cutting. Coinciding with the curved shoreline is an outer rim of rolling greenery that encapsulates the hill country, another boundary of viridian protection.  

Where the horizon line would be we are met with a large boulder smack dab in the middle of the flowing river; a dominating rock that owns that space for infinite nights and days – anchoring the background in the composition like an exclamation point.

The clear blue Pedernales River, draining into the Edwards Plateau and flowing west to east gives us a cerulean center in which to follow as if we are knee deep in it, feeling the chill in our bones, Goosebumps on our skin, and yearning to see around the bend, being drawn to the rich cobalt that emits tranquil treasures yet to be discovered.

But like the kind words of Robert Frost’s Nothing Gold Can Stay:

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf,

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day

Nothing gold can stay.

We know Perdenales Autumn is but a passage of time for these trees as they will inevitably outlive us as we continue on with our own internal thoughts and meditations of this picturesque painterly vision.

©  Gabriel Diego Delgado/ JR Mooney Galleries

To Purchase: Call 210.828.8214