This work stands out among Thomson’s depictions of darkness—he painted at least twenty-three nocturnal paintings—because it catches not only the atmosphere but also the character of the forest at night, mysterious and looming. Thomson depicts with accuracy and emotion the feeling of being in the night—a sense of peace, of night like a comforting blanket, wrapping itself around both the subject and the viewer.

Thomson found mystery in the night, when shadows were deep, and the light of the moon and the stars shone across the surface of a lake.