Off Mount Desert Island
Brooklyn Museum photograph
Object Label
Mount Desert Island, off the coast of Maine, first became a subject for American painters in the 1830s. For Fitz Henry Lane, the Maine coast provided a natural extension of his repertoire of New England marine imagery. Lane’s reductive power is demonstrated in this spare composition, in which much of the picture plane is given over to the effect of a twilight sky and the shadowy form of a ship reflected in the still water.
Caption
Fitz Henry Lane (American, 1804–1865). Off Mount Desert Island, 1856. Oil on canvas, frame: 31 × 43 × 2 1/2 in. (78.7 × 109.2 × 6.4 cm) 24 × 36 1/8 in. (61 × 91.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Museum Collection Fund, 47.114. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Artist
Title
Off Mount Desert Island
Date
1856
Medium
Oil on canvas
Classification
Dimensions
frame: 31 × 43 × 2 1/2 in. (78.7 × 109.2 × 6.4 cm) 24 × 36 1/8 in. (61 × 91.8 cm)
Signatures
Signed lower left: "F H Lane 1856"
Credit Line
Museum Collection Fund
Accession Number
47.114
Frequent Art Questions
Why two ships in such a desolate area? Was it really so quiet there?
Great observation! Mount Desert Island was (and is) home to multiple bustling ports. Fitz Henry Lane strategically reduced the number of people and man-made elements from his composition to emphasize the landscape and evoke a sense of the distant past.From this view point, in 1856, one would have been able to see many more ships, as well as numerous homes on the island.Lane also made the island into a barren landscape, which scholars speculate also supports his "distant past" idea. In reality, Mount Desert Island is not tremendously forested, but does have many more trees that this painting would suggest.Can you tell me more about this painting?
This is a painting of Mount Desert Island in Maine, one of several paintings on this wall that explore the way artists began to use light in the 19th century to explore concepts of beauty, the picturesque, and the sublime in the natural world. You can see that there aren't many people in the image. This is because Fitz Henry Lane purposefully reduced the human aspect of the scene. The island at the time would actually have had multiple homes on it, and more than the three ships you can spot here surrounding its shores.
Have information?
Have information about an artwork? Contact us at