Dawn or Dusk?

2020-02-10

All that I know of Jules Breton’s The Weeders is that it was painted somewhere in northern France in 1868. He has kindly provided a thin sliver of a moon, which is (for the northern hemisphere) a waxing crescent moon, a few days after a new moon. That moon is higher in the sky than the sun, which is only just peeping above the horizon. A waxing crescent moon rises and sets after the sun, so for the moon to be higher above the horizon, this should be late sunset rather than dawn.

Dawn or Dusk?, hoakley in The Eclectic Light Company