Moonlight, Wood Island Light
1894
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
30 3/4 x 40 1/4 in. (78.1 x 102.2 cm)
Classification
Painting
Culture
American
Department
The American Wing
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of George A. Hearn, in memory of Arthur Hoppock Hearn, 1911
Accession Number
11.116.2
Tags
Art Historical Context
Winslow Homer’s *Moonlight, Wood Island Light* captures the quiet drama of the Maine coast under a luminous night sky. Painted in1894, the oil canvas depicts the solitary Wood Island Lighthouse bathed in silvery moonlight, with gentle waves lapping at rocky shores. Homer, already celebrated for his Civil War illustrations and watercolors, had by this time turned almost exclusively to marine subjects, distilling the elemental forces of sea and sky into powerful, simplified compositions. Working in oil allowed Homer to build rich, velvety textures and subtle gradations of light that evoke both ...
About the Artist
Winslow Homer · 1836–1910
Winslow Homer (1836-1910) was one of America's greatest painters and a preeminent figure in 19th-century American art. Largely self-taught, Homer began his career as a commercial illustrator and Civil War correspondent for Harper's Weekly before becoming renowned for his powerful marine subjects and landscape paintings. His mastery of both oil and watercolor, combined with his uncompromising reali...