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NORDIC LIGHT & COLOUR
27
Introduction
Daylight is important for humans everywhere on the globe, but
it may be perceived differently in different places and regions.
The Nordic countries are special because of their closeness to
the North Pole; most large towns in Nordic countries are situ-
ated closely to, or north of, 60° N. Similar qualities of daylight
are hardly to be perceived on the Southern Hemisphere, since
the world’s southernmost permanently inhabited community,
Puerto Toro, is situated at 55° 05’ S. This fact underscores the
uniqueness of the Nordic countries’ location. In this essay we
will look more closely at the effects of this specific location on
the quality of daylight and twilight.
Sunset
Who does not enjoy looking at the sun slowly gliding down
toward the horizon and changing appearance from the hazard-
ous and glary giant light source, to a yellow-orange disk that is
not harmful nor glary any more, but gorgeous. The awareness
about its inevitable disappearance makes it even more beauti-
ful. The warm colour of the sunset sunlight is often scattered
in the atmosphere painting the sky and the clouds in warm
yellow-reddish colours. Sometimes the low and heavy clouds
are illuminated from beneath, giving an impression of a heavy
coat hanging over the earth, see figure 1.
Slowly and inevitably the sun is moving downwards (and to the
right) and gradually disappears beneath the horizon. Instantly
the direct radiation is gone, but the coloured clouds are still
there, witnessing about the act that has ended just moments
ago, see figure 2.
A beautiful sunset is possible to observe at each place on Earth
and on each clear day of the year. Only the time of the sunset
changes, e.g. the sunset in Oslo on the 21st December oc-
curs at 15:12, while on the 21st of June it occurs at 22:43. The
respective times for Cairo are: 16:59 and 19:59.
The sunset act also has different tempo in different places and
on different days. On the Northern Hemisphere the difference
in the sun’s movement speed of the sun, as observed on the
sky, is most clear during the summer. In the far north the sun
seems to move slowly, whereas it is the most rapid close to
Equator. On the 21st of June it takes 29 min for the sun to move
from the 5° elevation angle to 0°(horizon) in Cairo, while in Oslo
it takes 1 hour and 7 min. Additionally, the direction of the sun
movement is much more horizontal in Oslo, see figure 3.
There are a few more phenomena appearing sporadically on
the sky that we may observe and enjoy, the most known ones
being the rainbow and the rain fog. Additionally, similar cloud
tapes and shapes can be observed on the sky at most places on
Earth, i.e. stratus clouds with horizontal layering and a uniform
base, cumulus clouds growing upwards and taking various exu-
berated shapes and cirrus clouds characterized by thin, wispy
strands, associated with curling locks of hair.
If there are so many similarities, is the perception of natural
light at different places and in different regions the same?
Painters on the colour and light of a place
To find an answer to this question, let us look at the heritage
of fine artists, the group of people probably most sensitive to
changes of natural light and colour.
The British painter, Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851)
(Bockemühl 2011), claimed that each place has its special nat-
ural light and its special colours. During his life Turner made as
many as forty sketching tours (1802 – 1845) across Britain and
Europe, mostly in France, Switzerland and Italy, studying light
and registering characteristic colours for the respective places
in Europe. The results of his colour registrations are shown at
the Tate Britain gallery in London (Tate Britain 2000).
The impressionist painters were extremely aware of the diurnal
and seasonal changes of light and colour at various places.
One of their main objectives was the accurate depiction of light
as perceived at a certain place at a certain moment. They were
recreating the impression of the moment, which was not pos-
sible to capture by photography or to measure with physical
instruments. The impressions were connected to the place, its
light and the moment.
Nordic painters who were active in the last two decades of the
nineteenth century were aware of the uniqueness of natural
light in Nordic countries. Some beautiful examples of paint-
ings from this period are presented in the book “Nordic light,
interpretations in architecture” (Sørensen 2011).
Jan Garnert in the essay “On the cultural history of Nordic light
and lighting” (Garnert 2011) underscores the admiration that
Nordic artists had for the white nights with a warm and nearly
horizontal sunlight that models people and objects in a unique
manner. He described among others a work of the Swedish
painter Anders Zorn, see figure 4, where the red colour of sun-
light is evidently exposed using reddish paint.
In Juhani Pallasmaas essay “The ambience of Nordic light”
(Pallasmaa 2011) another specific daylight scenario is pre-
sented, namely the diffuse and white light that occurs during
the winter, see figure 5. As seen in “Washing on ice” by Pekka
Halonen, from 1900, the light is soft, untouchable and indepen-
dent on orientation; people and subjects are illuminated evenly
and equally from all directions; the shapes are lacking depth;