Mount's Bay: Early Morning – Summer

Henry Moore's 'Mount's Bay: Early Morning – Summer' (1886) depicts the great sweep of Mounts Bay in Cornwall — the bay dominated by St Michael's Mount, the tidal island crowned by its medieval castle, which was among the most distinctive and celebrated coastal landmarks in England. Moore's Cornish subjects combined his sustained marine observation with engagement with the specific atmospheric conditions of the Cornish coast, and his early morning treatment of Mounts Bay captured the specific quality of the day's first light on this distinctive marine environment.

Moore renders the early morning bay with his characteristic atmospheric marine sensitivity — the specific quality of summer morning light on the bay's expanse, the water's color in the dawn, and the atmospheric conditions that gave the early morning its distinctive quality of clarity and promise. The distinctive form of St Michael's Mount (if visible) provides the bay's iconic compositional element. His handling of the sea's calm morning surface and the quality of the early light creates the specific atmosphere of the early summer morning at sea.