Thomas Moran painted Mist in Kanab Canyon in his New York studio after traveling west in 1873. Using sketches he had made during the trip, he began this painting in 1880 and finished it in 1882.

This work exemplifies Moran's idealized representation of western rock formations and atmospheric effects. This landscape--composed of shifting diagonals and verticals--possesses a primordial quality. The lone limestone pinnacle stands, in swirling patches of fog, as if to guard against further encroachment. .

Courtesy of the National Museum of American Art, bequest of Bessie B. Croffut.