Lane Scene at Night
Medium
Oil on paperboard
Dimensions
55 × 43.5 cm (21 11/16 × 17 3/16 in.)
Classification
prints and drawing
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
273331
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Moonlight floods through tangles of dark, crooked branches, casting deep shadows on the ground that crisscross tracks imprinted in the damp earth by wagon wheels. The moon is just out of view but fills the scene with a strikingly eerie, bright-green hue. In the middle distance, a single cart makes its way down the muddy road, evoking the Romantic trope of lone travelers. John Atkinson Grimshaw has been hailed as “the painter of moonlight” precisely for moody, atmospheric works like this one. Se...