This is one of a large number of Levitan twilight paintings: haystacks in a field at dusk. The sky is described as mauve-blue. There is an evening mist. It makes for a painting with a very deep mood or atmosphere: Shhh, stop, admire, consider.
Levitan painted this scene the year before his death. Perhaps it reflects his awareness that we're here only a short time. Notice the descending sun has cast a kind of spotlight in the middle of the painting. Twilight is said to be a magic hour: the coming and going of the two lights - sun and moon.
Mother Placid was a French nun who I knew for some years. She was born in a tiny village on the Atlantic coast in Basque country. She told me that when she was a young girl at around this twilight time of day, a man with a long pole would walk through the streets lighting the gas lamps. And as he moved carefully from street light to street light, he'd sing a hymn-like song thanking God for the blessings of the day and inviting a restful peace upon each home. When he died, no one took his place.
Twilight is full of spiritual invitation. Lasting only a few minutes each day, we're impoverished if we miss it.
