Sunset at Grâce, orange and green sky

That fiery orange line slicing across the middle of the canvas is the whole show here. It marks the very last moment of a sunset over the water at Grâce, painted by the Swiss-French artist Félix Vallotton in 1918. Vallotton belonged to the Nabis, a group of painters drawn to flat planes, simplified shapes, and daring color choices. The contrast he sets up is bold: brooding gray clouds pile up across the top, that glowing band of orange burns along the horizon, and a strange soft green sky holds the two together like a bridge.

Vallotton often built his landscapes from memory back in the studio rather than sketching on the spot, which helps explain the still, slightly unreal mood of this one. A dark tree leans in from the left to frame the water, the sea lies flat and silvery, and the grassy foreground sweeps forward in a gentle curve, almost like the edge of a stage. The overall feeling is calm, but not entirely at ease. Those clouds seem reluctant to break up, giving the quiet scene a faint edge of tension. Catching that hush of a day slipping into darkness was exactly what Vallotton was after.