International studio (34.1908)

JHinslow Homer

his equipment and to mark the opening of his ca-
reer as a painter.
In 1861, after having previously refused to make
a contract with the Harper Brothers, Mr. Homer
accepted from these publishers an appointment as
special correspondent and went to Washington to
pictorially report Lincoln’s inauguration. If one
should wish to observe what progress has been made
in the last half century in the art of illustration or to
ascertain how long a road Mr. Homer himself has
traveled, it will only be necessary to turn back to
the files of Harper's Weekly for that and the follow-
ing year. Doubtless the crudity of the reproduc-
tive method influenced the form of expression, but
there are few of the earmarks of genius to be dis-
covered in the drawings which Mr. Homer made at
that time at Washington and in Virginia. Thomas
Nast, A. R. Waud, Theodore R. Davis, Henry
Mosler and Johannes Oertel all took up the same
work later and acquitted themselves with no less
credit, so if the prophets of that day did overlook
the one who in reality possessed greatest promise,
they may not have been altogether culpable.
Three times Mr. Homer made excursions to the
seat of war—once in the employ of Harper's
Weekly and twice independently. Then it was
that he began picture painting in earnest, and pro-
duced in quick succession Home Sweet Home, The
Last Goose at Yorktown and Zouaves Pitching
Quoits. All of these canvases depended primarily
for their interest upon the stories they related;
they were in the same style as the Roger groups in
sculpture—purely literary. There was nothing
trivial about them, however, or maudlinly senti-
mental; they were honest records, carefully
wrought with serious purpose—they carried con-
viction and they found favor. In 1864 Mr. Homer
was made an associate of the National Academy of
Design, and in 1865 he was admitted to full mem-
bership. It was this year that he painted Prisoners
at the Front—a work which an earlier writer has
declared to have immediately given him reputation
as an indisputable artist.
Following the war pictures came a series depict-
ing the life of the negro in postbellum days, with
which, chronologically, may be associated a num-
ber of striking canvases representing child life in
village and country. Cotton Pickers (owned in
London), Eating Watermelon (exhibited in the
National Academy of Design in 1878), and The
Visit of the Mistress (presented to the National
Gallery of Art at Washington by Mr. William T.
Evans), may all be numbered among the former,
while with the latter must be mentioned Crack the

Whip and The Village School. Hard, smooth and
unatmospheric, with details carefully studied and
explained, these paintings might be thought to
follow the tenets of the Diisseldorf School, but in
method they merely conformed to a current stand-
ard, and in subject they are essentially original and
American.
From the first Mr. Homer has been a law unto
himself—what other people thought or did does not
seem to have influenced him in the least. He has
witnessed the uprising of several schools, but he has
never been tempted from the path he originally
chose to adventure along those trodden out by oth-
ers. Not that he is prejudiced or narrow-minded,
but strong in his own convictions and sure of him-
self. His style has altered little from the first,
but the character of his work has undergone several
changes.
The fifty-fourth annual exhibition of the National
Academy of Design, which opened April 1, 1879,
contained, besides notable paintings by Inness,
Wyant and Sargent, three canvases by Winslow
Homer—Upland Cotton, a scene on a Southern
plantation; Sundown, a girl on the seashore, and
The Shepherdess of Houghton Farm, an American
idyll. In the first of these, curiously enough, a
contemporary critic found a suggestion of Japanese
influence. Turning to the Art Journal, published
by D. Appleton & Co. in 1879, one will read that
this picture was ££a superb piece of decoration with
its deep, queer colors like the Japanese, dull greens,
dim reds, and strange neutral blues and pinks,”
and will find it explained that ££ Japanese art is not
gorgeous like the Turkish and Persian, but that its
peculiar and artistic subtlety has been assimilated
precisely by Mr. Homer”—that, in fact, this pic-
ture seemed to the onlookers of that day £< original
and important as an example of new thought.” As
Japanese art and Japanese influence are quite gen-
erally supposed to be discoveries of recent date, this
is peculiarly interesting, especially as Mr. Homer’s
paintings do have an affinity to the pictures pro-
duced by Japanese artists, though not that which
was suggested. If, indeed, there is one thing which
Mr. Homer’s paintings do not possess it is decora-
tive quality; they are not arrangements of line or
mass or color; they appeal not so much to the eye
as to the intellect; they stir the emotions but do not
delight the senses. There is one exception—the
proverbial one—Winter or The Fox Hunt, belong-
ing to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,
which in its disposition of light and dark sweep of
line, and balance of interest, is splendidly decora-
tive as well as genuinely significant. It is, how-

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