window on dusk

[Winter Dusk (1961-63) William George Gillies (1898-1973)]

Sometimes when I am working at home I hardly move from my chair and desk all day, and can only gauge what's happening beyond my study from the light outside the window. In December, I'm even more acutely aware of the light as it begins to fade earlier and earlier, and the shadows fill the room while the plants and trees in the garden grow blurred and indistinct. Although I dislike this loss of light, I'm more able than I used to be to find dusk beautiful, to appreciate how the darkening backdrop can make a lit room and the objects in it look special for a short while, and how for a moment the hovering greyness outside balances the warm glow indoors.

[Lit Window, Early Dusk William George Gillies]

I like looking this way, from the inside out, as Gillies does in these lovely paintings of the views from his home in Temple, a small village about ten miles south of Edinburgh. He captures and frames his window on dusk, the cast of electric light on objects and flowers and, of course, the feeling of security and warmth. It's all this, together with plants growing indoors while everything outside is dormant, that helps me see that winter dusk is something to behold.