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Foreword
James Cuno
Description: Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light
Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light
Winslow Homer’s art has long been beloved by American audiences. So many of his images explore aspects of our national identity that are especially meaningful to us, from military heroism and innocent childhood to hard work and a reverence for nature. As Walt Whitman did with language in the same period, Homer used his artistic tools and materials to craft a strong, original style. He developed unorthodox methods of representation to conjure tangible, visceral experiences. Looking at the world …
Author
James Cuno
PublisherArt Institute of Chicago
Copyright© 2008 by Art Institute of Chicago
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00173.002
Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-14086
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Foreword
Winslow Homer’s art has long been beloved by American audiences. So many of his images explore aspects of our national identity that are especially meaningful to us, from military heroism and innocent childhood to hard work and a reverence for nature. As Walt Whitman did with language in the same period, Homer used his artistic tools and materials to craft a strong, original style. He developed unorthodox methods of representation to conjure tangible, visceral experiences. Looking at the world he recorded, we are personally warmed by the sun, transfixed by a sunset, frightened by the raw power of the sea, surprised by the sudden leap of a fish, charmed by the fresh blush on a child’s cheek, and delighted by the play of light and color across a tropical garden. Our experience of these sensations is direct and convincing, our understanding of the subject becoming more profound the longer we look.
Homer’s working life spanned more than five decades, from his apprenticeship in a Boston printing shop in the late 1850s to his death at Prout’s Neck, Maine, in 1910. During this long career, he worked in many different artistic media; he was a draftsman, illustrator, printmaker, and a painter in oils and watercolor. It is in watercolor, a medium he only started to use seriously in 1873 at the age of thirty-seven, that he found the ideal means of expressing his most immediate experiences and observations. His watercolor boxes, which are included in the present exhibition, are small and lightweight—easy to take on the frequent trips he made to indulge his passion for fishing, for the sea, and for wilderness.
Not only portable, watercolor is also quick-drying and offers unlimited possibilities for the manipulation of color and visual effects. Homer applied himself to watercolor with great concentration and seriousness, and seemingly, too, with joy and excitement. In this medium he developed a special veracity, the apparent rapidity and spontaneity of execution imparting a kind of honesty to his scenes. While Homer has been described as a realist as well as an American Impressionist, in fact his watercolors suggest that he was unwilling to be pigeonholed. In each work he matched his technique to the specific subject or mood he wished to capture. He was always willing to experiment in order to achieve an image that would ring true.
This book, with its companion exhibition, presents for the first time the Art Institute of Chicago’s entire collection of watercolors and drawings by Winslow Homer. The project has been a collaboration between curators, conservators, and conservation scientists. Using a wide range of technologies, they have scrutinized Homer’s use of his watercolor materials, elucidating his strong interest in color theory and optics as well as his intuitive method of working. We are sincerely grateful to Martha Tedeschi for her leadership on this important project and are indebted to the many museums and collectors who contributed to this study through the generous loan of their watercolors, drawings, and paintings to the exhibition. By integrating the Chicago watercolors into a rich field of related works, we hope to offer new insight into Winslow Homer’s special affinity for watercolor, a medium in which he made an indelible impact on the course of American art.
James Cuno
President and Eloise W. Martin Director
The Art Institute of Chicago