![Henri Edmond Cross - The Evening Air [1893-94]](http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5827/22704176425_a1141ed089_o.jpg)
In April 1893, Henri-Edmond Cross, who had been living in the South of France for two years, received a letter from his friend Paul Signac saying: "Since we both know and love this sunny land, why don't we both raise a decorative monument to it?.” For Signac this monument became In the Time of Harmony which was hung in the town hall of Montreuil, for Cross it was The Evening Air. Cross chose late afternoon, when the heat and light were subsiding. His whole work expresses the plenitude of this time of day: the soft colours of the setting sun, the harmonious balance of horizontal and vertical lines, and the figures in attitudes suspended in time.
[Musée d’Orsay, Paris - Oil on canvas, 116 x 164 cm]