ticketsMember | Make a donation

Kissing the Moon

Winslow Homer American
1904
Not on view
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.
Kissing the Moon is among Homer’s most distinctive works, painted near the end of his life. Its puzzling composition of a hunter and sailors—fixed in a liminal moment and nearly submerged by waves—exemplifies the artist’s ongoing investigation of themes of incipient conflict and ambiguous outcomes. The painting has been interpreted in biographical terms, possibly referencing the mortality of the three Homer brothers. The artist resisted any explanation of the work, noting only that he preferred that viewers keep their distance from it. He wrote to his dealer in 1904, "Your window is the only place where a picture can be seen in a proper manner . . . to look at and not smell of."

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Kissing the Moon
  • Artist: Winslow Homer (American, Boston, Massachusetts 1836–1910 Prouts Neck, Maine)
  • Date: 1904
  • Culture: American
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 30 1/4 × 40 in. (76.8 × 101.6 cm)
    Framed: 42 in. × 52 1/2 in. × 4 3/4 in. (106.7 × 133.4 × 12.1 cm)
  • Credit Line: Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, Bequest of Candace C. Stimson, 1946.19
  • Rights and Reproduction: Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA
  • Curatorial Department: The American Wing