George Ault, August Night at Russell's Corners, 1948, Oil on canvas. This painting struck me so hard in the middle of a spring Friday, today, in the gallery of the BAMPFA: the silence of it silenced me, stilled me. Reading the plaque, I learned that it depicts a street corner in Woodstock--part of the same mid-Hudson Valley where I first felt the haunting hush of a country night.











