The window and the sun

The Window and the Sun -
Everything Else Is Dark

Almost the entire image is black. And then, slightly off-centre, a window – and through it, a sunset so intense it seems impossible.

A vast red sun sits on the horizon of a lake, its reflection broken by dark silhouettes of trees and shore. The sky grades from deep crimson through violet to blue at the edges of the frame – a complete, perfect dusk compressed into a small rectangle of glass. The window's cross-bar divides the scene into four panels, like a painting within a painting, or a screen showing something from another world.

The darkness surrounding it is not empty – it is weight. It makes the window feel both precious and precarious, a small portal of warmth and colour in an otherwise absolute night. The room we stand in is invisible. Only the view remains.

The smaller the window, the more important what it shows.