Twilight is the time between dawn and sunrise or between sunset and dusk, during which sunlight scattering in the upper atmosphere illuminates the lower atmosphere, and the surface of the earth is neither completely lit nor completely dark. The sun itself is not directly visible because it is below the horizon. Owing to the distinctive quality of the ambient light at this time, twilight has long been popular with photographers, who refer to it as Sweet Light, and painters, who refer to it as the "blue hour", after the French expression l'heure bleue.
The collateral adjective for twilight is crepuscular; it is most frequently encountered when applied to certain insects, fishes, and mammals that are most active during that time.
Read more about Twilight: Definitions, Length, On Other Planets, In Hinduism, Gallery
Famous quotes containing the word twilight:
“Love that had robbed us of immortal things,
This little moment mercifully gave,
Where I have seen across the twilight wave
The swan sail with her young beneath her wings.”
—George Meredith (1828–1909)
“In contrast to the flux and muddle of life, art is clarity and enduring presence. In the stream of life, few things are perceived clearly because few things stay put. Every mood or emotion is mixed or diluted by contrary and extraneous elements. The clarity of art—the precise evocation of mood in the novel, or of summer twilight in a painting—is like waking to a bright landscape after a long fitful slumber, or the fragrance of chicken soup after a week of head cold.”
—Yi-Fu Tuan (b. 1930)
“You cannot, in human experience, rush into the light. You have to go through the twilight into the broadening day before the noon comes and the full sun is upon the landscape.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)