Catalog entry

Commentary

Stage Rocks and Western Shore of Gloucester Outer Harbor is remarkable in several ways. It is in pristine condition and may be as close as any known Lane to showing what the original color and surface were when coming off Lane’s easel. This may also be the painting described by Lane in a letter to Joseph Stevens, one of only several examples we have of Lane discussing his work:

I yesterday made a sketch of Stage Fort and the surrounding scenery from the water. Piper has given me an order for a picture from this point of view to be treated as a sunset. I shall try to make something out of it but it will take some management as there is no foreground but water and vessels. 

Lane clearly “managed” the composition of water and vessels masterfully and also created a remarkable study of the effects of light and reflection in transition across a broad spectrum of surfaces. The painting, now in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. was owned for many years by American art scholar John Wilmerding. The following is his description of the painting excerpted from an essay written in 1967.

The design is carefully structured on the zig-zag line that visually connects the four boats; in pairs their axes are at complementary right angles to each other. In echo the projecting rock masses along the shore behind seem to alternate rhythmically with small, recessed coves. Although most of the surface of the painting is divided into several horizontal zones and punctuated by the vertical interruptions of the ship’s masts, there is a total feeling of swelling and contracting lines of movement as the eye reads laterally across the composition. This is most clear in the rise and fall of the clouds, the outlines of the rocks at shore’s edge, the reverse curves of their reflection in the water, and the placement of the four hulls across the canvas. Yet interest is always directed towards the center, and the overall coherence maintained, by devises [sic] like the oar and arms of the sculling figure in the lower right pointing inward, by cutting off the view down the shoreline at the left with the broadside of the three-master, and by placing the largest elements such as the brightened cloud and tall-masted schooner in the central area itself. Still, cogency of design was not Lane’s only achievement; his understanding and mastery of the uses of color to bring out the effects of light contribute to the enlivenment of the whole painting. His breakdown of shadows into their color components and his application of small touches of pure paint to allow optical mixing of colors are in remarkable, because independent, anticipation of many Impressionist methods developed in the next decades in France. There is a wide range of differentiation in textures throughout the picture, from the clear glazes in the sky and clouds to the softer effects of rocks, trees, or wooden hulls, to the partially rippled, partially calm water surface and it’s [sic] changing reflections. Analysis of the reds and blues alone in this work would reveal the rich but understated variety of Lane’s coloristic touch. There is a remarkable range of reds, for example, in the bright-shirted figures in the boats in each foreground corner and their subtle counterparts reflected beneath, through the more diluted gradations in the clouds, hilltops, and rock reflections, to the lighter oranges at the right or the deeper purple grays at the left. A similar range of values exists in the transitions of blue through the sky and water, where greens emerge, and through the rocks or shadows, where grays and browns are mixed in. Though Lane’s handling is tight and restrained, his full variety and sureness of touch give his work a sparkling freshness seldom seen in his contemporaries. He has achieved an unusual combination of accurate recording and a more lasting aesthetic interest.

– John Wilmerding, reprinted from Essex Institute Historical Collections, January 1967.

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