Entrance to Harbor—Moonlight
David Johnson Kennedy
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
This picture was made at a time when highly finished drawings in black and white had begun to appeal to connoisseurs. Kennedy essentially rendered this image in pencil on the gray gouache ground covering the paper. He then produced highlights by scratching the ground to reveal the white paper beneath, producing the glow of the moon, the luminous filigree of clouds, the watery reflections and foamy surf, and the glints of light on sails, a lighthouse, and coastal rocks. The richness of the virtually monochromatic image is undoubtedly enhanced by nearly invisible small touches of orange and green pastel, applied on the foreground sand and the lapping water.
The American Wing
An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.