Moonlight, Wood Island Light

Homer’s first biographer, William Howe Downes, recounted that the artist was sitting outside his studio one summer evening in 1894 when he exclaimed, “‘I’ve got an idea!’. . . He almost ran into the studio, seized his painting outfit, emerged from the house, and clambered down over the rocks towards the shore.” This picture “was the result of that impulse and four or five hours’ work. . . . It was painted wholly in and by the light of the moon, and never again retouched.” The spot of red pigment on the horizon denotes the lighthouse on Wood Island, to the south of Prouts Neck, Maine. (Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art)