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Studying the master artist Winslow Homer is a perfect compliment to a study of the Civil War, or ocean weather and habitat. Winslow Homer was one of the greatest of the American genre artists. He captured nearly every aspect of Amercian life in the late 19th century, in particular the life by the sea. He documented the Civil War for Harper’s Weekly. Winslow Homer had a great love for ordinary people and ordinary things and had a bold and simple way of painting them. In his early life, Homer’s father was a merchant and his mother painted flowers. Before she died, she put her flower pictures in a book with this inscription, “When beneath the daisies these fingers are at rest, these flowers might yield of her joyous life a fragrant memorey.” She obviously influenced his love for life, beauty and art.
When he was ninteen, Homer went to work for a lithographer, the well known John H. Bufford. Copying sheet music, cards and posters for long hours. Homer said to a fellow apprentice, “ If a person wants to be an artist, he should never look at pictures.” Other than a very brief time at the National Academy of Design, he had little formal schooling, and at only twenty one years old, he made his living as a commercial illustrator. In 1867 he traveled to Paris and spent a year there painting landscapes. He was hired by the prestigious Harper’s Weekly magazine and was sent as an artist/correspondent to the battlefields of Virginia. His initial sketches were of the camp and army of the famous Union officer, Major General George B. McClellan at the banks of the Potomac River in October, 1861. Homer seemed to prefer to picture the everyday life of the soldier, as opposed to the violence of combat. Before the use of the camera to cover warfare, an artist captured scenes from camp and battle for the public. Homer produced over 100 of these wonderful drawings that were used in the paper and they established a national following for Homer.
The way that Homer made a wood engraving was as follows. Homer drew in pencil or pen in reverse, his picture on the surface of a hardened block of wood, boxwood was the preferred wood to be used. A skilled engraver would cut away any white areas left so only the drawing would remain. The lines standing out from the surface would be inked and the design was left. None of the original engravings of Homer’s are left. A delightful way for children to understand the process is to do a front page of a newspaper event from the Civil War or something having to do with the sea.
These websites http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/2aa/2aa644.htm and http://www.sonofthesouth.net/Winslow_Homer_Civil_War.htm have front page pictures Homer did for Harper’s Weekly. Have children make their own front page of a paper with a Civil War event as the headline. Go to your local newspaper and ask for some of the papers they usually throw away as they align the presses. This occurs every time they print the paper. Some of the papers have just a very small amount of ink on them. Use a large cleaned and dryed meat tray and have your children carve a design with a sharp pencil history into the tray. Cut the sides away and have black tempera paint ready to put on the design. Place this on your paper and press the design onto the front page. You might want to try this several times to be sure your design is not too dark or too light. The more times you press the design onto the paper, the lighter it becomes.
It is said that Homer put a sign on his studio that said “COAL BIN” to throw off would be visitors. In his mid 40’s Homer concluded his career as an Illustrator and began his career as a painter. His greatest joys were hunting and fishing, so he began painting outdoor scenes in a manner independent and yet similar to the Impressionists.
Throughout the 1870s he painted mostly rural or idyllic scenes of farm life, children playing, and young adults courting. Homer gained acclaim as a painter in the late 1870’s and early 1880’s. His 1872 composition, “Snap-the-Whip,” was exhibited at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Go to this website: <http://www.sonofthesouth.net/Homer_Snap_the_Whip.htm>
“Homer's early works had many curious parallels with that of the French impressionists, but they were not the result of influence, for impressionism had not yet been born in France. He was an independent American pioneer of impressionism.”
- Lloyd Goodrich,"American Watercolor and Winslow Homer" 1944
In 1873 Homer started painting with watercolors. His impact on the medium would be revolutionary. Homer's watercolor paintings exhibit a fresh, spontaneous, loose, yet natural style. Thereafter, he seldom travelled without paper, brushes and water based paints. Homer once remarked,
"You will see, in the future, I will live by my watercolors". Winslow Homer never married. At the age of 48, he turned his back on the world so to speak, and went to Prout’s Neck on the coast of Maine where his family had property. He walked the beach and built an open ended shack to study the sea in turbulent weather.
Can you imagine a room on the beach that had only three sides? According to Three Hundred Years of American Painting, he said about his life, “The sun will not rise or set, without my notice and my thanks.” He did many powerful seascapes and as he grew older, he explored the Carribean. His seascapes, such as “Breezing Up,” are perhaps his greatest legacy. He pictured the powerful Eastern coastal life for future generations. Homer died in 1910 at the age of 74 leaving a rich legacy of American history in his art. Go to this web addresses to see some exciting seascapes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winslow_Homer
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