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Date: Painted circa 1852.
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Dimensions: 12 by 18 in. (30.5 by 45.7 cm)
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Provenance: Joseph L. Stevens Jr.
William T. Balch, Boston, Massachusetts
Private estate collection, Cape Ann, Massachusetts until 2006
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Notes:
In 1848, Fitz Henry Lane made his first trip to Maine at the invitation of his close friend Joseph L. Stevens, Jr., whose family had a home in Castine, just off Penobscot Bay. There is little documentation concerning this visit, but the two likely sailed around the larger islands of the bay including Mount Desert, resulting in at least two paintings which Lane exhibited at the American Art-Union in 1849. Not long after their return, Stevens extended his family's hospitality to Lane, writing "You have not or did not exhaust all the beauties of Mt. Desert scenery, and perhaps there may be other spots in our Bay, that you may think worthy of your pencil" (quoted in Paintings by Fitz Hugh Lane, 1988, p. 120). Lane returned to Maine over the course of the next fifteen years, until his death in 1865. His intimate knowledge of the Maine landscape led him to complete detailed compositions of the state's myriad bays, islands, and peninsulas that dotted the coast, manipulating the striking atmospheric light of the summer months, especially during sunrise and sunset, into luminist views.
Lane based his finished oils of Maine on the sketches and studies he completed while touring the area with Stevens. In 1851 they cruised around the southern edge of Penobscot Bay, where Lane made drawings of Owl's Head and Camden on its western side and of the Castine shore to the east. View of Camden Mountains from Penobscot Bay originally began as an oil sketch based on one of Lane's drawings of the same title from this trip, now in the collection of the Cape Ann Historical Association. The hills to the right of the central island in the painting, although somewhat softened, follow the contours of the mountains in Lane's drawing. The painting may have been titled on the reverse around this time, as Jim Craig has noted the titular inscription is written in Stevens' hand.
Lane, however, reused the board for his oil sketch adding additional details and layers ofpaint to create the finished version we see now. Though not all of his drawings are extant, the view resembles his 1855 sketches of Bear Island (Cape Ann Historical Association), which sits at the entrance to Northeast harbor, just off Mount Desert Island, some distance from the Camden Mountains and Penobscot Bay. The presence of the construction derrick and pulley system atop the acme of the island in View of Camden Mountains indicates it may have been painted around 1853, as the lighthouse and keeper's cottage had burned down the previous year and was subsequently rebuilt.
The lack of foreground in Lane's drawings suggests that he made the majority of these drawings while on board a boat. His friends recalled that "on certain occasions he had himself tied around the waist by his vessel's main halyard and hauled part way up the mast so he might gain an even more elevated and expansive vista for his pencil" (John Wilmerding, Paintings by Fitz Hugh Lane, p. 122). These drawings are mostly topographical views, which recorded the contours and details of the locale's geography, and rarely contain color notations. It was in his studio that he would transform these records of fact into his light and color filled oils, incorporating his own memory of the day's last moments of light. He continued to refine his use of suffused light over the course of his career, forming the aesthetic notions that would become the foundation of luminism. View of Camden Mountains is a vision of controlled order between not only the physical characteristics of the island and its manmade counterparts, but also between light and dark. Lane's early training in the lithographic medium educated him in the possibilities of line and tonal contrast. View of Camden Mountains displays his careful draftsmanship, control of color values, and strong silhouettes. In a poetic transition between day and night, the warm glow of light does not reach the rough face of the island, contributing to a mood of tranquility.
When Lane developed his studio paintings from his drawings, he added key elements to create balanced compositions in which natural and man-made elements coexist in harmony. In View of Camden Mountains, the device of the boat with two men rowing, leads the viewer's eye into the scene, and helps the viewer imaginatively enter into it. The rowers head toward the rocky promontory on calm waters, but the lighthouse reminds the viewer of the dangers inherent in the treacherous passages of Maine's rugged coast and its unpredictable weather. During the summer, torpid calm alternated with forceful storms, sparkling sunlight with dense fog, and favoring breezes with unmarked hazards. Lane was inherently aware of this inevitable conflict between civilization and wilderness, but for many, these simple stone lighthouses served another purpose. As John Wilmerding notes, "For the early generation of adventurous travelers they also carried implicit symbolic and emotional connotations. They were emblems of safety and security, guidance and direction, and metaphors for spiritual salvation. ... These towers were not mere factual features punctuating the physical landscape. They also were beacons of stability, founded on the literal rocks of ages of bold Maine granite" (Paintings by Fitz Hugh Lane, p.116). While the lighthouse sits prominently atop the island, Lane has carefully calculated the placement of the lumber schooner, which subtly interrupts the horizontal emphasis of the landscape. The schooner acts as a token reference to the booming industry surrounding Maine's vast resources of timber and the subsequent shipping necessary to transport the processed lumber.
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