The Fog Warning

The Fog Warning

Artist	Winslow Homer
Year	1885 (1885)
Medium	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	76 cm × 122 cm (30 in × 48 in)
Location	Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, U.S.

The Fog Warning is one of several paintings on marine subjects by the late-19th-century American painter Winslow Homer (1836–1910). Together with The Herring Net and Breezing Up, painted the same year and also depicting the hard lives of fishermen in Maine, it is considered among his best works on such topics.^[1]^[2]^[3]

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(piano playing) Man: The dory is riding up the great swell and the fisherman is taking that moment to make sure that he can see the ship he's got to reach. Girl: We're looking at Winslow Homer's The Fog Warning from 1885 and that row boat is tipped all the way forward. That swell that the boat is riding on is high and he's about to go back down. He's looking back to the ship that he needs to get back to and as he looks in that direction he sees the fog rolling in. Any second that ship maybe lost in that fog and he'll be out on the open ocean alone. Man: This is a painting where we see the protagonist this fisherman assessing his situation and we assess it along with him. Girl: Except we don't see his face very much like in The Lifeline. Home doesn't show us the face of the figure. We can't exactly read their emotion, but wonderfully that leaves it open for us to think about what he's thinking about. Man: He's had a long and successful day. There are at least 2 large halibut in the boat with him and he wants to bring them back. He's off the coast of [Nufinmund] in the open ocean at the outer banks. This is still an important fishing ground but it is very far out to sea and if he doesn't make it back to that ship he's lost. Girl: And his boat is his livelihood. Ne needs to make it safely back to that boat and he needs to make it with the day's catch. He needs to go back and make his living. It really is about the ruthlessness of nature and we feel that not only in the strength of the sea but of course in the dark cast of the sky. What is most powerful is not only the surge of the surf but also the isolation of this figure, it's a big cold ocean. It's really empty and he has nobody to rely on but himself. That ship can't see him, his boat is too small. The ship that we see on the horizon is far away and we have a sense of the extraordinary physical strength it's going to take on the fisherman's part to get back there. Man: He needs to take these opportunities at the crest of each of those swells to be able to navigate his way back to that ship. Here he's assessing not only direction, but he's also assessing the time that it will take and the darkness that's going to fall. Girl: Like Homer's painting of The Lifeline, we have this moment of danger. This moment where we don't know what's going to happen. This moment when human beings try to overcome the dangers that nature has put them in. Like in The Lifeline, Homer is using a variety of brush strokes to give us a sense of the water and the spray of the see with broad whitish blue strokes of paint in the foreground that we can see through to the dark water underneath. So we really have a sense of the depths of the sea. Man: That's the foam. You can see, it's such an effective representation of the foam that's left over in the wake of the dory. You know what really strikes me is there's this beautiful sunset. If this was a painting that was made on land as just an expression of a beautiful aesthetic experience. Here, it's a harbinger of darkness and it really has become menacing. It's so interesting the way that Homer has transformed the way we would normally look at a sunset. Girl: Or an image of the sea in American painting. If we think about the way that water is represented in luminous painting for example where it's a beautiful glassy sheen that gives a sense of reflection and contemplativeness. Here, the sea is a space for drama. Man: And is activated in every possible way. This is a painting where the structure of space is absolutely fluid, as fluid as the water is. Girl: If we think back to the history of American landscape painting where human beings are not so much actors within that space confronting the challenges of nature. Nature's grandiose and sublime for example in the paintings of Albert Bierstadt of Frederick Church. Here, it's not the landscape itself that's sublime that contains force and power. It's the confrontation, it's the relationship between man and nature. (piano playing)

Background

After initially making his reputation with paintings on themes related to the Civil War, in the late 1860s and through the 1870s Winslow Homer turned instead to painting people relaxing and at play: children, young women, genre paintings of farm and sea scenes. In 1881–82 he spent time in Cullercoats, in northeast England, where he painted the local fisherman and women. On his return to the US, he settled for good in Prout's Neck, Maine, where his father and brother had recently purchased a large amount of land. His brother had spent his honeymoon in Prout's Neck in 1875, and Winslow had visited him then.^[4] In both these locations he returned to painting the sea with more serious themes, such as the hard and dangerous lives of the fishermen and their families, and "humankind’s life-and-death struggles against the sea and the elemental power of nature."^[4]

He had a studio built for him in Prout's Neck, which was completed in 1884. Here he painted The Fog Warning, one of three paintings he completed there in 1885 depicting the lives of the local fishermen. These are considered among his best works representing the subject; the others are Lost on the Grand Banks, and The Herring Net.^[1]^[2]^[3] Many of his late paintings, like The Fog Warning, depict a single figure at sea.^[2] Another theme in many of his paintings of the fisherman's life was the bounty of the sea, which also provides the people's livelihood; the two are combined in this painting, which was originally exhibited under the title Halibut Fishing.^[2]

Description

The painting depicts a lone fisherman in a dory who has caught several halibut but now sees fog blowing up, threatening to cut him off as he rows back to his ship. His face is turned in profile to the viewer as he looks over his shoulder at the clouds of fog in the background.^[1]^[2] He is in a race against the dense fog to return to the main ship with his day's work.^[5]

The Boston Fine Art Museum gives this description:

The Fog Warning is a painting with a narrative, though its tale is disturbing rather than charming. As indicated by the halibut in his dory, the fisherman in this picture has been successful. But the hardest task of the day, the return to the main ship, is still ahead of him. He turns to look at the horizon, measuring the distance to the mother ship, and to safety. The seas are choppy and the dory rocks high on the waves, making it clear that the journey home will require considerable physical effort. But more threatening is the approaching fog bank, whose streamers echo, even mock, the fisherman's profile.^[1]

The scene is psychologically tense; the risk of being lost at sea as a result of a sudden fog was all too real at the time, and the viewer does not know whether this man will reach his ship.^[1] The weight of the halibut in the stern of the boat is slowing him down, but if he decides to leave his catch behind he will not get paid for his work.^[2] The picture has been used in elementary-school education to teach about interpretation of art and fishermen's lives.^[6]

Interpretation

Several studies for the painting survive, among them a more intimate, less monumental version called Halibut Fishing.^[7] Homer's handyman Henry Lee posed for the painting in a dory supported on a pile of sand.^[7] In 1886 this work was originally displayed in Boston at Doll and Richards Gallery with the title Halibut Fishing.^[5] The original sketch was discovered in Homer's studio after his passing.^[7] This painting depicted the fisherman facing the viewer rather than gazing out to the nearing fog, with emphasis more on the act of fishing.^[7]

Before Homer added the dark shadows of the fog in the background, the original work emphasized the fisherman's focus on reeling in another fish to bring back to his boat.^[7] The fisherman's face is directed towards the line which he is feeding through one of the tholepins on the dory.^[7] The home ship is on the horizon, but the warm tones used throughout the sky and sea suggest the painting depicts a calm scene.^[7] Homer later changed the name of this piece to better depict the narrative of the relationship between the fisherman and the fog, rather than just the action of fishing.^[5] In his final piece, the dark clouds of the fog fill the skyline, almost swallowing the home ship on the horizon. The fog obscures the sunset, emphasizing that danger is near.^[5] The fisherman now appears in profile gazing towards the fog and the ship he must get back to.^[5] Homer replaced the fishing line in the tholepins with two oars, and added the detail of the anchor in the bow of the boat.^[5] The mood shifts in this final piece from calm to dangerous as darker shades of blue are added to the sea and the sky.^[5] The added details shift the meaning of this work to emphasize the dangerous life of a Maine fisherman when nature takes control.^[7]

Thematically related works

In addition to Herring Nets and Breezing Up, which share the focus on Maine fishermen, Homer's Lost on the Grand Banks (also 1885) and After the Hurricane, Bahamas 1899 depict tragedy at sea: the former shows another fisherman in mortal danger at sea, the latter depicts one thrown up on shore dead. In contrast, in Summer Night (1890) the sea is raging in the background while in the middle ground people silhouetted against the waves watch, but in the foreground two girls are dancing, unconcerned. Similarly in The Gulf Stream (1899), violent waves and sharks surround the drifting boat, but the man lays across the stern, again, unconcerned about the possible dangers.