Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

John Stockton De Martelly’s images often include dramatic lighting effects, in this case from a low (unseen foreground) campfire and the backlighting of the full moon. The title and the woman playing a guitar may refer to an old ballad that warned of the bad omen of an “old moon,” caused by the phenomenon of earthshine on the surface of a new moon. It also suggests the chorus of Paul Dresser’s popular song “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away” (1897):

Oh, the moonlight is fair tonight
along the Wabash,
From the fields there comes the
breath of newmown hay.
Through the sycamores
the candle lights are gleaming
On the banks of the Wabash, far away.

Studies for this print recall the artist’s illustrations in William E. Wilson’s The Wabash (1940), although this particular image was not used.