A large percentage of Theodore Lukits' plein-air pastels are moonlights. Because he loved painting "mood" paintings, he was drawn to the enveloping cloak of night. Night obscures detail, reducing a painting to its most essential elements, and in these simple compositions, stripped of the extraneous, Lukits excelled. He often painted a single, elegantly drawn tree or rocky outcropping silhouetted against the light of a full moon. When compared to the Northern California Tonalists, Lukits' works are more dynamic, as he used the more chromatic palette of Impressionism for his nocturnes. It is his elegant yet simple compositions and his subtle use of color that creates a palpable sense of mood even his least complex works.       TNL 169,   Pastel on Paper,    11" x 15" "Dark Moon" (circa 1924, Lukits Art Trust)     TNL 182,   Pastel on Paper,    11" x 15" "Midnight Mood " (circa 1924, Lukits Art Trust)   TNL 546,   Pastel on Paper,    11 " x 15" "Moon's Veil" (circa 1926, Lukits Art Trust) TNL 179,   Pastel on Paper,    11" x 15" "Shooting Stars" (circa 1926, Lukits Art Trust) TNL 556,   Pastel on Paper,    11" x 15" "Tumbling Clouds" (circa 1925, Lukits Art Trust) TNL 178,   Pastel on Paper,    11" x 15" "Rising Moon" (circa 1925, Lukits Art Trust) TNL 545,   Pastel on Paper,    11" x 15" "Moonlit Clouds" (circa 1925, Lukits Art Trust) TNL 554,   Pastel on Paper,    11" x 15" "Emerging Moon" (circa 1925, Lukits Art Trust)