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Huntley was preoccupied with light in her landscapes, and was drawn to storms and cold weather. She said, "Some of my most creative periods have been in heavy rains, and snow, and at night in moonlight." "Moonlight on the Mountain" was made during the four year period that Huntley lived in Cornwall, Connecticut — a period that Huntley called one of expansion and search for her. In the work, the view from a mountain top is from land she had purchased with her husband and is one of the few lithographs she made during this time period, as she was experimenting with engraving and etching.
She once wrote, "My aim as an artist is to create documentary prints which register the look and feeling of our land, and what grows on it, uniting mood and imagination with authentic record." Many of her light-infused works accurately represent the land while also conveying a specific feeling. Frequently, light breaks through the sky and casts patterns of light on the landscape with emotional and transcendent qualities.
Though gallery owner and Curator Carl Zigrosser regarded "Moonlight on the Mountain" as "poetic and lyrical," Huntley had a different opinion, succinctly stating, "I do not like the print." This was a common theme throughout her life, however, as gleaned from her letters, one example from 1950 when she wrote, "Would that there were just one lithograph among the many I have so ardently created, that could meet the acid eye of my own critical appraisal."