Fishing cutters in the moonlit night

Carl Locher was a Danish painter who specialized in marine subjects — the ships and coastal scenes of the Danish and North Sea waters depicted with both technical accuracy and atmospheric sensitivity. His 'Fishing Cutters in the Moonlit Night' (1888) belongs to the tradition of nocturnal marine painting, the moonlit sea and its vessels creating the atmospheric drama of reduced vision and the play of silver light on dark water. Locher's Danish marine subjects occupied the space between the Skagen painters' atmospheric innovations and the more conventional tradition of Danish marine painting.

Locher renders the nocturnal fishing cutters with the specific challenges of moonlit marine painting — the moonlight track on the water's surface, the vessels' dark forms against the lighter sky and water, and the specific quality of the nocturnal atmosphere at sea creating the composition's formal elements. His handling of the fishing cutters' rigging and hull forms in the moonlight demonstrates his knowledge of the specific vessels he depicted. The night atmosphere unifies the composition through its restricted tonal range.