Many Impressionists painters of the late 1800’s painted their interpretations of the sun setting. One of the most recognized is Claude Monet’s painting (1908 Venice) titled San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk. Monet chose to use the colors of the rainbow to represent the setting sun. The top of the sky is blue with red sitting on the horizon. Purple is represented in the sky’s reflection in the water. See link. Other well known artists who painted their impressions include Modern artist Georgia O’Keeffe who painted Sunset, Long Island in 1939 and Pop artist David Hockey, who painted Northern Sunset in 1967. Their paintings give us a modern take on this phenomenon that has been around since the Earth’s formation billions of years ago.
Peter felt that the sky was where he could take the most liberties in his paintings. In the painting Beverly and the Klamath Queen he chose to paint the sky a flaming orange/ red. Air pollutant particles from the pulp mill smoke stack seen in the background contributed to the dramatic sky as the sun sets over Humboldt Bay in Eureka, California in 2004. In the C Minor the sun is yellow surrounded by an orange haze but the rest of the sky and the reflected water is painted violet. Violet and indigo are the rarest colors to be seen at a sunset. It is because these shorter wavelengths are scattered away by molecules thus leaving the longer wavelengths like red, orange and yellow more visible. These two paintings and other works attached are available for sale.
In 1962, after traveling around Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa for 6 months, Peter booked his return passage on a merchant marine ship from Cape Town, South Africa to New Orleans, Louisiana. During his time on the ship, he learned about the green flash. The green flash can occur at sunrise or sunset. At sunset, this rare optical phenomenon happens when a green flash of light appears briefly just above the sun’s upper rim as it dips below the horizon. It’s caused by the Earth’s atmosphere refracting and scattering the sun’s light, with the green wavelength being bent slightly more than others. For sailors looking west, the green flash means they are looking at a clear horizon where tomorrow’s weather will come from. It also represents good health and prosperity on their travels. The green flash is not exclusive to ocean horizons. The key factor is to have a distant view of an unobstructed horizon such as from a mountain top or tall building.