It is a Germanic ritual if anything. The Celts celebrated transitions not peaks - we know that from the Coligny calendar. For them dusk and dawn was probably more important than midnight and noon.

But up here the lightest and darkest days are significant by themselves. Even though we are generally atheists (of sorts) light nights and dark days are pretty vehemently influential on the way you live and act.

The painter is P.S. Krøyer. He is almost up there with Singer Sargent and Anders Zorn. I was never that fond of him, but he was brilliant. When painting this he was on the brink of a psychic breakdown. Central in the painting, in the background, you can see his beautiful wife and the Swedish composer Hugo Alfvén standing together in front of a boat. She left him for Alfvén just about that time!