Julia and Lyonel Feininger, on Black Mountain College

The location of the college was in itself of importance to us: pretty high up in the mountains, on the shores of a small lake in a wide valley (about 15 miles from the nearest town, Asheville), and encircled yet by higher ranges, intensely wooded... The mornings especially, were fraught with magic. Vapors teaming from the lake, mists enveloping the world around, and when slowly rising revealing the contours of trees and the mountains, the very element of light appearing as something mysterious mysterious and new, effects reminiscent of Chinese landscape paintings. Later in the day colors becoming strong and rich, distant ranges at times of a blue which, for its singleness has acquired a name of its own, connecting with the region: Asheville Blue. The wonderfully quiet nights and the stars above more brilliant and seeming bigger than anything else.

-- Julia and Lyonel Feininger, "Perspective and Trust," design 47, no. 8 (April 1946):7.

(quoted from p. 57 of "Black Mountain College: Experiment in Art," edited by Vincent Katz (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2002))