JONAH HISTORICALLY REGARDED (DOME): Frank Stella (1936 —), hand colored etching, aquatint, relief, engraving, screenprint and stencil on paper, 186.69 cm x 134.62 cm. Addison Gallery of American Art, Tyler Graphics Ltd. 1974-2001 Collection, given in honor of Frank Stella, 2003.44.300 /©2017 Frank Stella/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NewYork.
On the hither side of Pittsfield sits Herman Melville, shaping out the gigantic conception of his white whale, while the gigantic shape of Greylock looms upon him from his study-window.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne, from The Wonder Book
By Stuart Mitchner
In a December 1850 letter to a friend penned while he was “shaping” the book that became Moby Dick, Melville writes, “I look out of my window in the morning when I rise as I would out of a port-hole of a ship in the Atlantic. My room seems a ship’s cabin; & at nights when I wake up & hear the wind shrieking, I almost fancy there is too much sail on the house, and I had better go on the roof and rig in the chimney.” more