Fitz Henry Lane: The Master of the Silvery Mist

April 4, 2014

By John Wilmerding, The Wall Street Journal - Artist produced just a half-dozen foggy views. 'Ship Starlight in the Fog' was one of his most beautiful.

Painting the optical conditions of fog must be one of the most demanding technical challenges for an artist. The German Caspar David Friedrich mastered the effects in his Romantic Northern landscapes of the early 19th century. In America, Frederic Edwin Church and Martin Johnson Heade at midcentury convincingly depicted fog in occasional drawings or oils. But Fitz Henry Lane (1804-1865) stands alone as the master of silvery moisture, unmatched in the history of American marine painting. Link to the full article here