In this series, the curatorial team presents one work from the Meural art library we find essential. (See all installments.)

Sunsets inspire in me a strange mix of melancholy and optimism—as the day takes a bow there is, of course, a sense of ending. But with it comes, as Emerson noted, “the promise of a new dawn”.

There’s also the promise of that rare moment of transcendence. That the sun will set is a given, but in what mood and manner is not. The day may end in a gaudy show of bruised purples, slashed with brassy orange, or in a serene display of distinct chromatic lines. It may merely fizzle out in a haze of grey.

But every so often the day will explode, as if in slow motion, in such an indulgent and complex symphony of color, that we can, for a fugitive moment, be transported beyond our immediate environment, experience a mysterious sense of clarity that dissipates as soon as it takes shape.

No wonder that artists have, across the ages, felt so compelled to capture the unique splendours of the setting sun—to stamp in time a vanishing sky. The 19th century painter William Ascroft felt it was almost impossible and that his paintings “could only secure in a kind of chromatic shorthand the heart of the effect.” In The Golden Hour, Moran comes as close as possible.

— Poppy Simpson, Head of Curation