The Winnipeg Art Gallery takes on an evocative theme with Nocturne: From Twilight Until Dawn, an exhibition of 47 paintings, drawings and prints by Canadian and international artists on view until Sept. 30. The gallery's permanent collections of historical, contemporary and Inuit art are tapped to explore, as curator Mary Jo Hughes writes, the many metaphors of night: "night as death, night as fear, night as loneliness, night as peace, and night as the seat of our unconscious." FIGURE
The canvas reproduced here, The Errors of the Moon, is by Manitoba artist Tom Lovatt, who describes the work as part of a series of paintings "related to the same body of images." The moonlit garden, the floating man, the enigmatic woman, the urn and other elements suggest loss and regret. But for Lovatt they also describe the transition from one life stage to another and, ultimately, regeneration and regrowth. This is the contemplative aspect of night, through which one ascends from despair. From the dark night of the soul arises an eerie beauty.
Whatever the night holds for artists and mystics, the small hours have traditionally been onerous for physicians. Texas researchers1 found that the rate of exposure to bloodborne pathogens among medical students and residents was 50% higher at night - hardly surprising in a group whose most well-known occupational hazard is sleep deprivation. As Vincent Hanlon writes of the ER night shift: "In this nocturnal labyrinth, we stumble repeatedly, bumping into the ill and injured. Other nights we walk the uneven terrain of Death Valley."2
Fear of the night has a long and articulate history. The evening rites of the Book of Common Prayer implore the Creator to "defend us from all perils and dangers of this night." But it seems that some things that go bump are really rattling around in our heads. A study on the acoustic startle reflex in humans suggested that although we are jumpy in the dark this may have more to do with our childhood fears of darkness than with heightened auditory attention.3 Besides, there is some evidence that it is not night but early morning that is perilous. A study in New York City showed a 60% rise in disease-related deaths beginning at 2 am and peaking at 8 am.4 This gives new depth to Thomas Browne's observation in 1643 that "We term sleep a death; and yet it is waking that kills us."