In the first of these two articles looking at how to read the time of day in paintings, I considered that trickiest question, whether it’s dusk or dawn. Here I look at telling what time of day it is more generally, where most of the same principles apply. Several of these are shown well in Claude-Joseph Vernet’s series The Four Times of Day, completed in 1757.

Morning shows three people busy fishing at the edge of a substantial river, as the sun rises behind a watermill and trees on the left. Making its way slowly towards the viewer is a barge, its sail lofted out by the gentle breeze. Gulls are on the wing, and the day promises to be fine and sunny once the early morning haze burns off in the sunshine.

By Midday, the clouds of early morning have built into squally showers. While two people are fishing with nets, a couple with an infant and a dog, in the left foreground, are hurrying for shelter before heavy rain starts. Behind them a shepherd has brought their flock under a grove of trees. The gulls are now wheeling and soaring in the strengthening wind. Shadows shown, such as that of the dog in the left foreground, are short, indicating the sun is high in the sky.

The storms past, by Evening the weather is again fine. It’s warm enough for a small group of women to bathe in the river, in a pool below a waterfall. This scene is reminiscent of the falls of the Aniene River at Tivoli, not far from the city of Rome, with the ruins of the Temple of Vesta at the top right, a very popular motif for landscape painters.

At Night, Vernet takes us down to the coast, where a group who are apparently living rough on the beach are heating a large pot on an open fire. Behind them is a lighthouse, with a full moon low in the sky, implying that this view is looking to the east at moonrise. A fully-rigged ship is heading into the shore, under full sail to catch what it can of the light breeze.

Shadows

If they’re present, cast shadows can provide the best and most accurate information about the elevation of the sun. The higher the sun is in the sky, the shorter the shadows, and the closer the time will be to local solar noon. Allowance has to be made for location and season too: in northern Europe during the winter months, solar elevation at local noon is lower than it is on a summer’s morning, or late in the afternoon in June. Once again, a good astronomy app can help you visualise the course of the sun through the sky, hence the length of shadows to expect.

One of the best illustrations of this is a landscape painted by Paul Cézanne early in his career.

For Cézanne learning to paint en plein air alongside Pissarro’s easel in 1873, cast shadows weren’t left until last, but painted as he completed each section of this view of The House of Père Lacroix, Auvers-sur-Oise. However, as with all beginners, he took a long time getting the painting to look right, so different sections of the roof were painted several hours apart.

As shown in the marked-up image below, the angle subtended by the shadows isn’t consistent. In some, the sun is high in the sky, close to its zenith, but in others rather lower. These imply a wide range of solar elevations, an issue that still affects those learning how to paint en plein air.

Even experienced artists can get the light and shadows all wrong on occasion.

John Atkinson Grimshaw’s famous Reflections on the Thames, Westminster from 1880 looks upriver towards the distinctive clock tower and buildings of the Palace of Westminster, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. The time shown on the face of Big Ben appears to be 1045, yet its full moon is low in the western sky, indicating that it’s approaching sunrise. As this looks into the light, the figures seen at the right should be in the shade. Their cast shadows aren’t coherent either, and some indicate that the moon should be in a quite different position.

Special occasions

Many paintings show festivities and other special occasions that allow them to be dated and timed quite precisely.

Émile Friant’s chilly All Saints’ Day (1888) shows a young girl about to give a blind beggar a coin, as her family passes on their way to pay their respects at the Nancy municipal cemetery, the traditional activity on All Saints’ Day, the First of November. In the vaguer distance, there is a dense procession of similar families clad in black, making their way through the cemetery.

Generally acclaimed as William Dyce’s finest painting, Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th 1858 (c 1858) shows this bay on the Kent coast, during a family holiday visit: a coastal scene worked up into a large finished oil painting. Although not easily seen in this image, there’s a small point of light high in the middle of the sky which is Donati’s comet, not due to return until 3811. Couple that with the inclination of the sun and the state of the tide, and you should be able to place this view precisely in both time and space, and confirm that it does indeed show this bay on 5 October 1858.

Indoors

Paintings set indoors are far more difficult to locate in time, without the aid of the sun or other celestial objects.

Anna Palm de Rosa’s atmospheric painting of A game of L’hombre in Brøndum’s Hotel from 1885 shows a late-night session of this popular card-game between two couples staying there. Although likely to have been painted between March and October, the period in which most artists might have stayed in the hotel, this could show almost any time during the hours of darkness.

In Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov’s Russian Preference (1879) we’re back on slightly firmer ground. This shows the game known as ‘Russian Preference’ or Preferans. According to the grandfather clock at the right it’s just after four o’clock, which could be in the afternoon or the small hours of the morning. Cast natural light in the doorway suggests it’s still daylight outside, though, as these three play cards to while away the time. The cast shadows are also fascinating.

You might still strike gold, though.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Beata Beatrix, from about 1864-70, is one of a few major paintings including a sundial. Here the artist uses it to help locate this image to the city of Florence, with the Ponte Vecchio in the background, at nine o’clock in the morning, the moment of death of its subject, Beatrice Portinari.