'The Christmas of Those Left Behind' (1903) by Angelo Morbelli.

I stumbled on this piece during an art deep dive early in the summer. I'm always a sucker for something with a bit of melancholy, and this one certainly suits. Information on this one seems a bit scattered. Initially, I thought I had read that it was a portrayal of elderly folks at a retirement home, but another write-up claims this is images of soldiers in a chapel.

Whatever the tale, there is a sacredness and a loneliness, for sure. The empty pews, the distance between its figures. The lone fellow at the back, the figure along the wall with arms raised, in a kind of prayer? Or is that a heater of some sort, and he is attempting to shake off some of the cold that might grip his weary limbs?

The final character, perhaps initially overlooked is the warm rays of sunlight that fall across the image. Winter light has a particular kind of warmth, its gift more rich, its meaning in abundance. In summertime the sun is added heat on heat, and we seek shade, in the winter, how the sun can transform despair into hope, even if it only doubles our longing.

Here the sunlight (to this interpreter) is a grace, even as it falls upon the weary bent-over figure in the right foreground. Who I speculate, is in slumber or prayer? Despair? (Perhaps all three are a form of the same).

May the light find you, even in these darkening days. "The returning of the light" comes, in the silence of our quiet spaces.

I believe I see a candle in the very centre of the frame, lighting lights and looking to the season ahead.