Winslow Homer's interest has begun to shift…

Winslow Homer's interest has begun to shift from the edge of the sea to the sea itself.

Perhaps inspired by a putative trip to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, Canada, with a fishing fleet, he paints heroic men in the act of pitting their strength, intelligence, and experience against the mighty sea.

In the most impressive of these works, Fog Warning (1885, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), night is falling, fog is rolling in, and a lone fisherman in a dory calculates the distance and the time remaining for him to get back to his home ship in safety.