The mountains dominate this Winter Park, Colorado, landscape even though much of their height extends beyond the frame. Their cool, snow-covered slopes rise above layers of forest, open meadow, and the warmer grasses of the foreground. That progression from gold and green into muted blues and grays creates both distance and a sense of tremendous scale.
Rather than focusing on a distant summit, the painting looks toward the country beneath it, where meadows and forests gather at the base of the high peaks. Broad, simplified passages in the mountains contrast with the broken vertical marks of the trees below. The result is less a portrait of a particular peak and more an exploration of what it feels like to stand in the landscape where the mountains begin.
