Effets de soir

Effets de soir - literally 'evening effects' - names paintings in which the light of sunset, twilight or early darkness becomes the true subject. The approach runs through nineteenth-century art, from Camille Corot's silvery dusks and Armand Guillaumin's saturated sunsets to Vincent van Gogh, whose canvases of the 1880s turn night skies, lamplight and the blue hour into emotional drama. It belongs to the same repertoire of Impressionist concerns as en plein air painting and color theory: catching a fleeting condition of light in paint before it changes. In 2008 the Museum of Modern Art devoted a major exhibition to van Gogh's evening and night subjects, including The Potato Eaters, The Starry Night and The Night Cafe.

Defining characteristics

• Sunset, twilight and lamplight treated as the subject rather than the backdrop
• Deep blue, violet and orange skies contrasted against a darkening land or cityscape
• Glows and halos of artificial light against night (lanterns, windows, stars)
• Atmospheric haze and softened contours that evoke a fleeting time of day
• Warm-cool color contrast used to suggest the last warmth leaving the sky

Key figures

• Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) — Painted the night and evening subjects gathered in MoMA's 2008 exhibition
• Camille Corot (1796-1875) — Early master of twilight and dusk landscape moods
• Armand Guillaumin (1841-1927) — Impressionist painter of vivid sunsets and dusk along the Seine and Creuse

Example works

• The Potato Eaters — Vincent van Gogh (1885)
• The Night Cafe — Vincent van Gogh (1888)
• The Starry Night — Vincent van Gogh (1889)

Sources

• Effets de soir - Wikipedia encyclopedia

← Back to the catalog