Figure 1.--This marvelous painting, "Huntsman and Dog", is an important image of American boyhood. It was painted in 18??. Most of Homer's images of rural children are set before the Civil War. Here the hat and rifle set this image after the War. This is a poweful image of Ameican childhood. It is not set in the wilderness, note the felled tree. It does show a boy alone facing nature and in many ways symbolizes American individuality. This image could never have been painted in Europe. There game and hunting was largely reserved for the upperclass and reserved for sport. Few European boys would own rifles. Note that this is a detail from a work with much broader horizons. As we want to focus on the individual we have cropped out much of the image. Homer's work to be fully appreciated needs to be viewed in entirety.

Winslow Homer was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, American artists. And what times he lived in to portray. When he was born America had a small population and was little regarded around the world. Homer saw the opening of the West, the Civil War, the Indian Wars, the industrial revolution, and the emergence of America as a great world power. Throughout all this tumualt Homer has left us simple, but powerful images of rural life in a still largely agrarian country during the mid-19th century. There is no better depiction of rural American childhood during this period than Winslow Homer. The most famous is probably "Cracking the whip", but our favorite is "Huntsman and dogs". These images are very important historically. Home painted at a time when photohraphy eisted, but as primarily confined to studio photogrphy of people dressed in their best clothes. Thus with Homer we see facinating scenes of life on the frontier and rural areas and the clothes boys wore when not in their best dress-up clothes.

Parents

Winslow was the son of of Charles Savage Homer and Henrietta Benson Homer. Both came from well-established New England families. His father was a driven businessman who ws determined to suceed. One biographer describes him as 'volatile'. He operated a hardware store business in Cambridge. Then came the California Gold Rush (1848) and what seemed like the chance to make his fortune. He left the family and took off for California (1849). Winslow was 13 years old at the time. Like most of the 49ers, his father arrived late and did not find gold. After returning home, Charles Homer again left his family, this time for Europe to pursue another get-rich-quick scheme that again did not work out. Winslow's mother was a very differentvoerson and the anchor of the family. She was also a talented watercolorist and like many earlyvAmericans, hercson's first teacher. They developed a very strong bond that would lastvthroughout their lives. Winslow in many ways took on many of her characteristics. She was quiet likecher son, but strong-willed. She was very sociable and had dry, characteristically New England, sense of humor. Of course more than anything it was from his mother that his artistic sense developed,

Childhood

Winslow was born in Boston, Massachusetts during in 1836. America was still settling the areas east of the Mississippi amd the landswest of the River were still dominated by Native Americans and penetrated only by intrepid Mountainmen and their traps. That was notcsomething tge young Winslow would have seen. Boston was, however, one of the important northeastern cities. He was the second of three sons. Homer by all accounts had a happy rural childhood. While born in Boston, he grew up in Cambridge outside of Biston, which was still a basically rural environment.

Childhood Clothes

Education

Winslow did not destinguish himself academically. He was a mediocre student. His artistic abilities, however, were obvious from an early age. Homer's graduated from high school andcthan had to decided on a career. His father after noteing a newspaper advertisement. arranged for an apprenticeship (1855). Winslow was 19 years old. The apprenticeship wascwith J. H. Bufford, a Boston commercial lithographer. It was here that the young Homer perfected his skills, although he would later decribe it as a 'treadmill experience'. His assisnments were to work on sheet music covers. This was of course at the time before the invention of the phonograph. Any music in the hime was created by the individuals and their instruments. Thus sheetvmusic was much in demand. He worked for Butler 2 years and be began a freelance career.

Training

Homer other than his mother was an almost entirely self-taught artist. He had no academic art training. Looking at his work it is almost unimaginable how he achieved his level of art and depiction without any art training. His lithographer's apprecticeship of course did help. And he was soon producing illustrations good enough for publication. While cstill doing his aprenticeship he was offered a ppsition with Harper's Weekly. This was the most important illustrated magazine in America. Illustrations at the time had to be produced from engravings. The young Homer was having none of it. He woukd later write, "From the time I took my nose off that lithographic stone, I have had no master, and never shall have any." Hecdid, hoever, do work for Haroer's on a free lance basis. After doing illustrations for magazine articles, Homer traveled to Paris (1856). His observations of important master works there gave him an improved idea of how to handel light and a taste of the early stages of impressionism.

Career

Homer began his artistic career doing magazine illustrations before the Civil War. He regularly contributed engraving drawings to Harper's Weekly. This was America's most popular illustrated magazines at the time and gave a young Homer visibility throughout the country. He went on to produce many important images, but unlike many painters did not do many portraits. Rather we have genre and landcape scenes, many concetrated on a few different topics tgat seem to have appealed to him.

Body of Work

Homer painted several different types of images leaving an extrodinarily diverse body of work. His sporting images seem just as fresh as the day they were painted. His seacapes are extrodinarily powerfull. It is his quiet simplistic studies of rural American life in the mid-19th century that he is perhaps best remembered. There are also important Civil War images. His main focus was nature and people dealing with nature--both the forest and the sea. These images are very important historically. Home painted at a time when photohraphy eisted, but as primarily confined to studio photogrphy of people dressed in their best clothes. Thus with Homer we see facinating scenes of life on the frontier and rural areas and the clothes boys wore when not in their best dress-up clothes.

Media

Homer painted in both oils and water colors. He once said, "You will see, in the future I will live by my watercolors,". His early paintings were oils. He began using water colors after using oils for nearly 20 years when he was already a mature, fully developed artist. He worked on fishermen and their fmilies at Cullercoats in England (1881-82). This was a subject addressed by several other artists.

Clothing Depictions

The children in Homer's rural scenes mostly seem to come from the the pre-Civil War era, the 1840s and 50s. It is this not surprising that Homer was Mark Twain's favorite artist. The boys Homer paints could have come right from Twain's books. The boys wear rounded hats with brims. Many look like straw hats. The shirts are long seeves looking like they were made from homespin. The boys wear long pants. Some are a bit above the ankle because they have out grown them. Commonly the boys are barefooted. Often they are fishing or playing. Sometimes they are depicted at one room schools, usually playing outside at recess.

Family

Death

Homer died in Prout's Neck, Maine (1910).

Assessnment

Homer's work is both historically and aesthetically important. It provides unforgetable images of every day rural life during a critical era of American history. An era that the camera was not yet ready to record. The images of rural children gave become icons of Americana. Aesthetically Homer served the purpose f the impressionists in Europe in showing the beauty of Anmerica and its people.

Mid-19th Century

Phtoghraphy was invented in France (1839). No country took to photography as energetically and rpidly as America. Thus we have a larger and more extensive 19th century photographic record forcAmerica than any other country. So we have a huge number of images available for the first time in the mid-19th century. -Illustrations of families and individuals for most of history were limited to a relatively small of artistic depictions. These focused heavily on the elites of society. Photography in the mid-19th century revolutionized this. Suddenly we see large numbers of images not only from the elite sectir of scociery, but from the middle-class as well. And by the end of the century the working-class could also aford portraits. Most of the photograohic images in the 19th century, however, were studio images with the subjects dressed up in their best or other clothing. Thus to see how children dressed outside the studio, we have to turn to artists and illustrators. Severl indiviuals are important here. None provide more wonderful images than Winslow Homer (1836-1910). He painted sevrl importnt images of children and not only does he orivide images outside the photographic studio, but they are images of ordinay children and not just the rich and well-to-do middle-class. Given Homer's age, one might have thought he would beter represent the late-19th century. But artists are often influenced s to how they depict children by their earlier years. In addition, children fashions on the frontier and rural are did notvchange s rapidly as city fashion.

Sources

Cooper, Helen A. Winslow Homer Watercolors.

Created: April 4, 2004
Last updated: 11:46 PM 2/29/2012