Times of Day

About Times of Day

Morning, noon, dusk and night each have their own light and mood, and artists have used them to set the emotional key of a picture. Michelangelo carved reclining figures of Dawn, Day, Dusk and Night for the Medici tombs in Florence (1520–34), turning the passing hours into meditations on mortality. Claude Lorrain placed a low sun over classical harbours, as in Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba (1648), bathing ships and palaces in gold.

The 19th century brought artificial light into play. John Atkinson Grimshaw painted moonlit docks and lamplit suburban lanes, and Vincent van Gogh's Café Terrace at Night (1888) set a yellow awning against a starry blue sky without using black. Edward Hopper's Early Sunday Morning (1930) stretches a row of shuttered shopfronts under flat early light, while his Nighthawks (1942) isolates a diner's customers in a harsh glow.