Image source: Wikimedia Commons (Public domain). View source
The Fog Warning
Winslow Homer · Realism & Academic
- Artist
- Winslow Homer (1836–1910)
- Date
- 1885
- Dimensions
- 76.8 x 123.2 cm
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Location
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, United States
The Fog Warning shows a lone fisherman in a small dory rowing over a rough grey-green sea, with two large halibut lying in the stern. He turns his head to look at a bank of fog rolling in on the horizon, and far away, barely visible, is the schooner he must reach.
A closer look
The fisherman has had a good catch, but he faces a race against the weather: if the fog closes in before he reaches the mother ship, he may be lost at sea. Homer conveys this tension through the tilting boat, the heaving waves and the man's anxious backward glance. The low, dark clouds and the cold light make the open ocean feel immense and indifferent. Homer painted such scenes after settling at Prouts Neck on the coast of Maine, where he observed the sea and the lives of fishermen through every season.
