Fantasy in Twilight 1911

Edward Robert Hughes made this painting, Fantasy in Twilight, with oil paint, and you can almost hear the music. I can imagine Hughes layering the blues and grays to conjure this dreamy scene. The figure playing the flute is so still, so pensive. The tree trunk is knobbly and solid, offering a kind of grounding in contrast to the ephemeral forms of the gathering figures. But look, those gathering figures seem to emerge from the landscape. I bet Hughes was thinking about the relationship between the human and natural worlds when he made this painting. I wonder if he was listening to music when he painted this. Hughes seemed to create this as an offering, maybe one to other artists, or maybe it was for himself. Artists leave these little nuggets, like breadcrumbs, for the rest of us to follow and to discover along the way. What a lovely, thoughtful thing to do, to leave little openings, through color and shape, for people to think with.