Every gallery keeps one room with the lights turned low, and this is ours. Nocturnes gathers the works that happen after dark: observatories with their domes open, lunar regattas, railway carriages crossing indigo valleys and laboratories where the vapour glows.
Most of the paintings here are patient. Skies take their time; constellations assemble slowly; a comet might cross once in a long evening. That makes the room a good first stop if you like to watch a game build its own atmosphere before anything dramatic happens.
Look out for the way light is used. Many of these works have a single strong source — a moon, a lens, a lantern — and everything else in the frame falls away from it.
What to look for
- Telescopes, lenses and domes
- Moons in every phase
- Trains, boats and other night journeys
