Night and Sleep

When you first look at Evelyn De Morgan’s Night and Sleep (1878), the immediate draw is how effortlessly the two figures seem to glide across the evening sky. It’s a stunning example of her early Pre-Raphaelite style, but beneath the gorgeous drapery and rich colors, there is a lot more going on. The composition actually takes a massive cue from the Italian Renaissance. If the horizontal, sweeping motion of the interlocked figures feels familiar, it’s because De Morgan was heavily inspired by the wind gods in Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, which she studied up close during her travels in Florence. The dark-haired figure represents Night. She is wearing these rich, flowing red robes that perfectly mirror a setting sun, and as she moves, her billowing cloak symbolically pulls the darkness across the sky behind them. She is confidently leading her son, Sleep, who is resting peacefully. As he slumbers, he gently scatters bright red poppies down to the earth below. For a Victorian audience, poppies were an obvious symbol for sleep and peace, mostly because of opium-based medicines like laudanum. But for De Morgan, they meant even more, she was a staunch pacifist, and the poppy was a visual motif she frequently used to represent her anti-war ideals. What makes this artwork so brilliant, though, is how De Morgan uses a classic mythological scene to quietly push back against the society she lived in. By portraying the female figure (Night) as the active, powerful force leading the way, and the male figure (Sleep) as completely passive and resting, she totally flips traditional Victorian gender dynamics on their head. It takes what is already a visually beautiful painting and elevates it into a really smart, complex masterpiece.