Catching Crabs

One of Mount’s last great genre paintings, Catching Crabs contains many typical everyday activities of Long Island’s shoreline in the 19th century: a team of workers cutting salt hay, boaters raising a sail for their skiff, and a man and boy spearing crabs amid shallow waters. The scene feels nostalgic in its depiction of a place seemingly un-impacted by modernization and expanding development. Both Whitman and Mount, near the end of their lives, yearned to preserve the island of their childhoods that was quickly fading.