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Winslow Homer

@artist-homer / artist-homer.tumblr.com

Fan account of Winslow Homer, an American landscape painter and printmaker. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in American art.   
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artist-zorn
artist-zorn

By Lake Siljan, Anders Zorn, 1905, Nationalmuseum, SWE

Anders Zorn has come to be associated with paintings of nude young women bathing. In his early paintings on this theme, the women often seem unaware of the spectator. They are not posing, but are simply captured on canvas while undressing or concentrating on getting out of the water. This spontaneous character is naturally false, and the nudity is a vital element in the painting. Nevertheless, these paintings are not primarily erotic; instead, the emphasis is on the effect of light. The nude body is hazy, to serve as a sculptural shape in the play of light and shadow in the overall composition. By Lake Siljan from 1905, on the other hand, is an example of how the subject was eventually exploited and became more explicitly erotic. Here, the woman is facing the spectator frontally, with her body fully exposed. The summer sun is used purely as a spotlight and not for subtle effects.

http://collection.nationalmuseum.se/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&module=collection&objectId=18693&viewType=detailView

#nationalmuseum#natmuseumswe#museumarchive
artist-homer

The Herring Net, Winslow Homer, 1885, Art Institute of Chicago: American Art

In 1883 Winslow Homer moved to the small coastal village of Prouts Neck, Maine, where he created a series of paintings of the sea unparalleled in American art. Long inspired by the subject, Homer had spent summers visiting New England fishing villages during the 1870s, and in 1881–82 he made a trip to a fishing community in Cullercoats, England, that fundamentally changed his work and his life. The paintings he created after 1882 focus almost exclusively on humankind’s age-old contest with nature. Here Homer depicted the heroic efforts of fishermen at their daily work, hauling in an abundant catch of herring. In a small dory, two figures loom large against the mist on the horizon, through which the sails of the mother schooners are dimly visible. While one fisherman hauls in the netted and glistening herring, the other unloads the catch. Utilizing the teamwork so necessary for survival, both strive to steady the precarious boat as it rides the incoming swells. Homer’s isolation of these two figures underscores the monumentality of their task: the elemental struggle against a sea that both nurtures and deprives. Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection Size: 76.5 × 122.9 cm (30 1/8 × 48 3/8 in.) Medium: Oil on canvas

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/25865/

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