Cosy nights in, crackling fireplaces, leaves crunching underfoot 🍂 This week marks the official start to Autumn and Harpignies’s ‘Autumn Evening’ perfectly encapsulates this change of season. The autumnal colours and fading glow of the evening light evoke the inevitable passage of time and a certain melancholy. Leaves on the cluster of poplar trees are crisp and beginning to turn brown. On the scrubby grass beneath the trees, a few dabs of paint suggest late blooming flowers or perhaps leaves already fallen. A dip in the rough terrain reveals the breadth of a lake, its water rippling and splashing under the distant, grey hills. Despite its somewhat sombre mood, Harpignies includes the figure of a woman, walking amongst the trees. Bringing life to the otherwise dormant landscape, she animates the scene through colour, painted in expertly judged dots and dabs of red, pink and brilliant white. Harpignies rarely put figures into his landscapes; when he did, they usually had a technical purpose. Henri-Joseph Harpignies, 'Autumn Evening', 1894 © The National Gallery, London. #ArtHistory #Autumn #Landscape #NationalGallery