Here in the northern hemisphere, today is the first day of Autumn, AKA the Autumnal Equinox (and of course it’s the beginning of Spring down under, where they do everything upside backwards).

An equinox is a point in the Earth’s orbit in which the tilted axis of our planet’s rotation is neither toward or away from the sun and day and night are approximately equal length (hence “exquinox”, basically “equal night”), so I suppose we should feel straightened up and balanced at this point.

Autumn always seems a strange balance of bitter and sweet — Summer is fading, but the beautiful crisp and clear days of the season of some of the best of the year, and the dying leaves go out in a last triumphant explosion of color.

Picturing Autumn, an Equinox Celebration is the finale in a series of four seasonal posts over the course of this year by Irene Gallo, Creative Directory for Tor.com and Tor Books, in which she asked a number of artists and art directors to give their suggestions for images that picture a given season. The series started with Picturing Winter and followed with Picturing Spring and Picturing Summer.

The new post is the most extensive of the series, with nearly 100 images. Like the others, it’s a cornucopia of art and artists that is wonderful not only for looking through, but as a jumping off point for investigating artists with whom you may not be familiar. The choices cut across a wide range of times, genres and styles.

As before, I’ll suggest that you follow the links Gallo has provided not only to the artists whose images are featured, but to the sites of the artists who made the suggestions; all of them will be rewarding.

I was delighted once again to be asked to participate, and my suggestions for images associated with Autumn for the article are shown above — by Arthur Meltzer, Frits Thaulow, John Atkinson Grimshaw and George Inness.