From WINSLOW HOMER to FASHIONED by SARGENT- Artists pursuing the Fabulous in Nature and Humanity
The World of Winslow Homer ( Time Life Library of Art, 1966 ) by John Thomas Flexner shows unpeopled sea and landscapes, humans battling nature with revelatory emotion and technique. A favorite of mine is the watercolor of the artist's studio, both specific and abstract. Winslow Homer (1836-1910) was part of The Hudson River School but he also stood apart. Many of these self-taught "Yankee" painters, like Cole, an Englishman, came to paint the pure luminous light of the New World with unknown seasons. Cole, a portrait peddlar, knocked on doors with canvas and art supplies strapped to his back, until he quit to "learn from nature." Homer, apprenticed to a printer, learned to produce in-depth black and white illustration. After his freedom, he became a master of watercolors and taught himself to paint "what he saw" in oils. Surprising to him, the work sold. New England light contrasted to a brutal environment, ...