Winslow Homer: Forces of Nature and Social Divisions

While researching last week's article on a painted summer, I once again came across Winslow Homer. He is one of those painters who I don't always have on my radar because they don't play a major role here in Europe. But whenever I see one of his paintings, it captivates me.

I like his visual language. It is straightforward without being straightforward. It's hard to explain. It is by no means as linear and clearly defined as, for example, Edward Hopper's work. But it has a clarity that stands out from the ambiguity and complexity of what he is telling us.

On the other side of the ocean, Homer is considered one of the most American artists of all time. Perhaps this is because a nation that had only begun to cross the continent in settler treks a few decades earlier recognized itself in his paintings. In the juxtaposition of human vulnerability and the threatening elemental forces of nature, which is a recurring theme in Homer's paintings.

An Artist's Life in the 19th Century

Winslow Homer was born on 24 February 1836 in Boston, Massachusetts. His father was a businessman and his mother a talented amateur watercolourist. She painted flowers and landscapes, and several of her watercolours have survived to this day. She was also the one who encouraged him to draw. She gave him his first drawing materials.

In 1854, Homer began an apprenticeship as a lithographer at J.H. Bufford's Lithography, a well-known printing company in Boston at the time. There he produced templates for advertisements, posters, and illustrated sheets. After two years, he left the company and started his own business as an illustrator in 1857. He was just 21 years old at the time.

Two years later, in 1859, Homer moved to New York, already the cultural centre of the United States at that time. This marked the beginning of a decisive phase in his career, as it was here that he became an independent artist. Winslow Homer rented a studio in the 10th Street Studio Building. Artists such as Frederic Church and Albert Bierstadt also worked there.

Civil War

He regularly contributed to Harper's Weekly, one of the most important weekly newspapers in the United States.
On 12 April 1861, Confederate troops bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina. The American Civil War had begun. The main triggers were the conflicts over slavery and the political balance of power between the northern and southern states.

The war lasted until 9 April 1865, when General Robert E. Lee signed the surrender of the Southern States in Appomattox, Virginia. Homer worked for Harper's Weekly throughout the four years of the war and, as their special artist, a kind of war correspondent, he travelled repeatedly to the front to sketch scenes on the ground.

He produces hundreds of drawings, which are later printed as woodcuts in the magazine. They depict camp life, soldiers in their everyday routines, battles, but in a more sober manner than the heroic images of many of his contemporaries. His realistic and unemotional style quickly makes him famous.

At the same time, Winslow Homer devoted himself increasingly to painting. His experiences during the war had a profound effect on him and later found their way into his paintings. The vulnerability of human beings in the face of violence, death, but also circumstances greater than themselves, is a recurring motif in his paintings.

In 1863, he exhibited for the first time at the National Academy of Design in New York. Anyone who exhibits there has the chance to be noticed by the public, collectors, and critics. In 1865, he was elected an associate (probationary member) and in 1867 a full member. This recognised his status as a painter.

The Academy helped to establish its own artistic tradition in the USA and not just look to Europe. This was because there was a growing awareness in the USA that they needed their own visual language to represent their country and their themes. Art should express something national, not just be a copy of the Old World.

But in the 19th century, Paris was still the centre of the art world. Anyone who wants to be internationally recognised goes there, studies at the École des Beaux-Arts, and exhibits at the Salon. Many American painters, such as Mary Cassatt and John Singer Sargent, are also strongly influenced by Europe, especially Impressionism.

In 1866, Winslow Homer travelled to Europe and spent almost a year in Paris, even exhibiting at the Salon. There he saw the works of Courbet, Manet, Millet and also the beginnings of Impressionism. Europe inspired him, but he did not import its styles.

He is not an Impressionist, but he adopts their free brushwork and interest in the moment. He shares Millet's view of the seriousness of everyday subjects, is perhaps inspired by the directness of Courbet's brushstrokes, and also sees the emphasis on the here and now. But he filters these impressions and builds something of his own from them.

In New York, his painting was still strongly influenced by Realism. But over time, and perhaps also due to the influence of Europe, he moved away from strict attention to detail. Forms became simpler, surfaces larger, brushstrokes more visible. Nevertheless, he did not become an Impressionist. His paintings appear more structured, clearer, less ‘shimmering’. In his late seascapes, his painting is almost expressive, the waves consisting of broad, energetic brushstrokes.

In literature, Homer is often described as a ‘bridge builder’ between European realism and an independent American visual language. With his later seascapes, he opened up a path towards symbolism or expressionism – thus building a bridge not only geographically (Europe–USA), but also stylistically (realism–modernism).

Reconstruction 

Homer returns from Paris in 1867. In the United States, the Reconstruction Era (1865–1877) is in full swing, a period following the Civil War during which the southern states are reintegrated into the Union and slavery is abolished.

The reality for freed African Americans is fraught with tension: legally free, but socially and economically disadvantaged. Homer addresses these issues. He observes and depicts the fractures of this period, but again without commenting on them in a simplistic manner. His portrayals of the reality of African American life are unusually sober and unclichéd for his time.

In 1876, the United States marked its centenary. While the country celebrated, Homer highlighted its unresolved contradictions. A Visit from the Old Mistress was created in the same year. In art history, it is considered a central work in his socially critical oeuvre, alongside The Cotton Pickers and Prisoners from the Front.

It depicts the encounter between a former slave owner (the ‘Old Mistress’) and a group of freed African-American women. The Black women are standing or sitting together, while the ‘old mistress’ stands opposite them. The figures seem trapped in a silent confrontation. No one looks at each other, and there is a feeling of tension and unease.

Homer shows no violence, no obvious accusation. But the body language says it all. The past has not been overcome. Freedom is fragile and social conflict unresolved.
Few white artists of his time dealt so directly with the realities of African American life.

Homer's paintings are more complex than they appear at first glance. At first, you see clear scenes, understandable motifs – everyday life, people, nature. Only at second glance do you see the symbolic power, the tensions, questions about life, death, and power relations.

Take, for example, the painting I chose as the cover image for this article. A farmer at work, right?
The title of the picture is: A Veteran in a New Field. Immediately, the experience of war resonates. The ‘new field’ is not just the wheat field, but the new life after killing.

In war, the bayonet was the man's tool. In the field, it is the scythe. It nourishes (harvests), but is also traditionally an attribute of the Grim Reaper, symbolising death. Homer plays with this ambiguity. The veteran is not completely free from war.
This is also symbolised by the partially mowed field. It shows that the former soldier has a lot behind him and a lot ahead of him that he still has to cope with, but also that it is worth working for.

The horizontal composition with sky, field, and ground is inevitably reminiscent of many national flags. This seems like a visual allusion to nation and statehood. 1865, the year the Civil War ended, and the painting was created, was the moment when the USA had to redefine itself as ‘one nation’.

A Veteran in a New Field tells of hope, of burden, of death, of new beginnings. Because it says so much about this historic moment with so few elements, it is now considered an iconic symbol of the return to civilian life.

Change of Perspective

In the 1870s and early 1880s, Winslow Homer began travelling again. Watercolours are much more convenient. With a small box and paper, he could work on the go. And so he became more involved again with the medium he had been introduced to by his mother as a child. Soon, watercolour became more than just a medium for sketching, and the practical solution turned into a real passion.

Winslow Homer developed a virtuosity in watercolour that made him one of the most important watercolourists in the United States. He exhibited watercolours for the first time in 1873, with great success. His watercolours are clear, flooded with light, often painted with surprisingly few brushstrokes. Many critics say that Homer appears most modern in his watercolours.

With his watercolours, Homer also opened up thematically. His paintings are less socio-political, depicting nature, leisure and everyday scenes. Nevertheless, the complexity remains. Behind the seemingly light-hearted scenes, one often senses the same fundamental questions: vulnerability and transience.

In the early 1880s, Winslow Homer spent almost two years in the fishing village of Cullercoats on the north-east coast of England. There he painted fishermen and their wives waiting on the shore, mending nets or carrying heavy loads.
Unlike idyllic genre paintings, he portrayed them as serious, strong and unsentimental.

In Cullercoats, the North Sea rages, rough and unpredictable. The hard life, the constant struggle with the sea, had a profound effect on him. He studied how people lived with this violence and made it a fundamental theme of his later painting: man versus nature.

However, the watercolours from Cullercoats radiate above all tranquillity. The figures often stand isolated, in simple poses, almost like silhouettes against the sea. This reduction to clear forms became typical of Homer from his time in England onwards, and had a decisive influence on his late work.

An Art Studio on the Cliffs

Even after returning to the United States, he was increasingly drawn to coastal landscapes. In 1883, he settled in Prouts Neck on the coast of Maine. He deliberately sought proximity to the sea. He converted the old family home into a studio. It is located on the cliffs, directly above the sea. He lived there from then on. For almost three decades, interrupted only by his travels to the south (Florida, the Bahamas, Cuba, Bermuda).

From his studio window and the veranda, he had an unobstructed view of the waves. He only had to step outside to feel the surf. This immediate experience is reflected in the drama and precision of his seascapes.

The coast is rocky and rugged, with cliffs dropping straight down into the Atlantic. There are few beaches here, but plenty of bare rock. The climate is often stormy, with fog, storms and heavy swells. These are precisely the dramatic conditions that inspire Homer.

He lived a secluded life, almost like a hermit. Homer never married, avoided society, and concentrated entirely on his art. His proximity to the surf allowed him to study wave movements and weather conditions in detail.

The ocean right outside his front door became his most important motif. The dramatic Atlantic coast is ever-present. Surf, cliffs, storms. Works such as The Life Line (1884) and The Gulf Stream (1899), which are now considered among his most significant works, were created right here. Nature as an overwhelming force, man small and vulnerable.
Without the rugged, rocky coast of Maine, his visual language would be almost inconceivable.

Winslow Homer died on 29 September 1910 in his studio house in Prouts Neck, Maine.
He was 74 years old.

Blind Spots

Art history has long been very Eurocentric. Museums, canons and school textbooks featured almost exclusively European men. This is slowly changing.

Artists from the USA, Latin America, Africa and Asia are also increasingly coming to the fore. Non-European art is now perceived as an independent tradition and not just a ‘precursor’ to Western modernism.

But this is still far from sufficient. Women and non-Western perspectives are still underrepresented. Although the discourse has become more inclusive, the structures (museums, academic curricula, market mechanisms) are often slow to follow suit.
Much of this still takes place in special exhibitions, with no permanent integration into the canon.

There is still a long way to go before art history is truly told in a diverse way, with all the voices and perspectives that belong to it.
Homer is a good example of this for me. An artist who is considered the founding father of American painting in the USA, in the same breath as the Hudson River School and later the Ashcan School, but who is largely unknown here.