Creatively, twilight is a mysterious time,

when passions become stronger

or enable a moment of disguise.

David Cox, Darley Churchyard, 1858

Worcester City museum collection

James Whistler, an American artist and author,

argued that the artist was more powerful than

nature

in his Ten O’Clock lecture on 20 February 1885

at the Prince's Hall Piccadilly, London:

James Abbott McNeill Whistler Nocturne: Blue and Silver - Chelsea, 1871

Tate Gallery go to painting details and image

“... when the evening mist clothes the riverside

with poetry, as with a veil,

and the poor buildings

lose themselves in the dim sky,”

Vincent Van Gogh Coal Barges, 1888

Museo Thyssen Bornemisza go to painting details and image

“... and the tall chimneys become campanili,

and the warehouses are palaces in the

night,

and the whole city hangs in the heavens,

and fairy-land is before us –“

Egon Schiele Sinking Sun, 1913

Leopold Museum go to painting details and image

“... the wise man and the one of pleasure,

the working man and the cultured one,

cease to understand, as they have ceased to

see,”

Edward Hopper Gas, 1940

MoMA go to painting details and image

“... and Nature, who for once has sung in tune,

sings her exquisite song to the artist alone.”

Wolfgang Tillmans I Don’t Want to Get Over You, 2000

Editions in the Tate and the Metropolitan Museum of Art

go to photograph details and image

In Cox’s watercolour,the gravedigger works in the gloaming.

Does the twilight speak of a journeybetween this world and the next?

Or is Cox using the darkness topaint a story about the man himself?

What do you think?

David Cox, Darley Churchyard, 1858

Worcester City museum collection

This watercolour of Darley Churchyard was one of David

Cox’s last paintings and the one he considered his best.

Born in Birmingham, Cox (1783-1859) was a master of the

watercolour medium and is considered second only to

Constable as a portrayer of the British landscape and

weather.

The images linked to in this slideshow are for personal research use only.

For reproduction enquiries refer to the appropriate collectionor contact museumcollections@worcestershire.gov.uk for advice.