This gouache entitled The Fog in Maine, Boston (1957) is a preliminary study for the painting The Fog from 1960, but based on the earlier painting The Fog in Maine from 1957.  The impulse for the work arose out of a late-night car ride with friends when a large moth suddenly flew against their windshield.

In the first painting from 1957, the moth is recognizably portrayed with, on the right (just as in the later works as well), a bird's head with outstretched neck sticks out from above a layer of mist.  In the preparatory study for the subsequent painting, Cox transforms this moth into a visionary image, thereby imparting a more dramatic accent to the rather neutral atmosphere.

In his artistic creations, Jan Cox will continually return to certain themes and motifs, always developing them further: “You can get ten new ideas, ones you hadn't earlier thought about, but that emerge while you're working.  The more you work, the more work keeps coming.  There's no end to it..." (Jan Cox)