“Winslow Homer and Politics”

Essay by Robert Klotz

Posted on January 14, 2009

Taken on the whole, the work of Winslow Homer clearly does not emphasize political subjects.  It does, however, include enough political content to warrant inclusion in this web exhibit of prominent Mainers with a touchstone to politics.  Although explicit references to government were unusual in his work, Homer did have occasion to consider expressly political subjects while more frequently capturing scenes that carried political meaning.

Early in his career, Winslow Homer produced a lithograph for a music sheet that contained an image of Andrew Johnson.  The image resulted from the music being formally dedicated to then-Tennessee Governor Andrew Johnson, who would ultimately become President in 1865 following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.  The lithograph was produced in 1856 as part of his duties working for prominent Boston lithographic firm Bufford’s.  In another Bufford’s lithograph, Homer portrayed the entire state senate of Massachusetts.  Homer’s lithographic work at Bufford’s was a reasonable first step in his artistic career.  Born on 25 Friend Street in Boston on February 24, 1836, Homer had been raised in Boston and accepted full time work at Buffords in 1854.  When he turned 21, Homer quit Buffords for less predictable work as a freelance artist.

As a freelancer, Homer frequently found work with the general affairs magazine Harper’s Weekly.  After successfully submitting some drawings for publication with Harper’s, Homer agreed to do some contract work for Harper’s.  In 1861, Harper’s commissioned him to cover the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln.  The assignment produced drawings of incoming President Lincoln.  His drawings appeared in the March 16, 1861, issue of Harper’s Weekly.  One of the drawings was of the inauguration procession. The picture below is a detail of Homer’s drawing of Lincoln with outgoing President Buchanan.

Over the next several years, Homer also took periodic assignments covering the Civil War for Harper’s. These assignments led to a number of drawings of Union troops, especially the Army of the Potomac under General McClellan.  Many of these works depicted life as troops were in camp.  Far less frequent was when Homer would observe and depict direct combat.  Homer famously depicted the rise of the sharpshooter, whose role had increased by enhanced telescopic technology.  As the war was drawing to a close, Homer was attracted to oils and transformed some of his drawings to oil, with Sharpshooter being his first significant effort.  Also important was his “Prisoners of the Front” depicting Confederate prisoners, which helped to give Homer a major profile following its successful display in Paris in 1867.  Homer also focused on the soldier’s return to daily life after the Civil War, such as in “Veterans of Field,” a painting that was selected for the “Picturing America” initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities.  Introducing the 40-work collection in 2008, President Bush said that the initiative would “help to educate children about the great people and places and moments in our history using American art and masterpieces that depict them.”

 The Civil War also motivated Homer to depict blacks. The life of blacks in Civil War and Reconstruction America would be a recurrent theme in Homer’s work.  As Richard Powell explains, “one should exercise caution in attributing a political stance to Homer or to his paintings... [but] one can comfortably look at Homer’s black imagery as accurate reflections of America’s complex and changing attitude toward its black citizens.”

Political meaning can also be derived from Homer’s frequent depiction of women.  Homer’s female subjects were frequently confronted with choices in a changing America.  Barbara Dayer Gallati explains that “[b]y featuring women going about their daily lives in his illustrations, Homer was able to incorporate references to these social and economic shifts in a way that was almost universally recognizable to his audience.”  Some of these changes involved women in the workforce on the backdrop of industrialization, including work in education at a time of education reform.  Other changes involved leisure, such as Homer’s depiction of croquet in which women from country and city areas had different reactions.  The difference between city and country is also a broader theme in much of his early work 

Briefly leaving his American subjects behind, Homer traveled to England in 1881.  The first painting that he made on this trip was of the Houses of Parliament in London.  The painting is owned by the Hirschorn Museum in Washington D.C.  Governmental buildings, however, did not keep Homer’s attention for long and he would spend most of his time in England depicting coastal life in Northumberland.  The focus on the ocean emerging from this England trip would become the focus of his later career.

In 1883, Winslow Homer moved full time to Prout’s Neck in Maine.  He had known the area through previous visits with his brother and bought a house and studio there.  At Prout’s Neck, his work would focus on ocean scenes.  On one occasion, Homer looked out the window of his Prout’s Neck studio and observed dancing by moonlight on a rock near the ocean.  This became the subject of “Summer Night” in 1891.  The painting, reproduced below, was bought by the French Government in 1900.  Homer died of a heart attack at Prout’s Neck at the age of 74 in 1911.

Ultimately, we cannot know for sure what Homer thought about the political subjects and political meaning of his work.  Homer seldom discussed his work and was famously reclusive in the later years of his life.  He didn’t leave a record of writings that can illuminate his thoughts on the events of the day.  Conclusions about Winslow Homer and politics must rest on his work alone. His occasional depiction of expressly political subjects shows Homer to be a quick study for depicting current events of the day.  As Elizabeth Johns explains, Homer was a faithful observer.  The images that Homer observed and depicted can carry political meaning to the audience for his art.  Homer observed a range of American life, which is open to a range of political interpretation.  Homer had little interest in clearing up any ambiguity of political meaning that his work left as a whole. 

While scholars remain unclear about the political meaning of his work, there is consensus about Homer’s work as distinctly American.  Unlike many other prominent artists, Homer did not seek formal training in Europe.  Although he had two stays in Europe, he did not seek formal training there instead opting to stay at a friend’s studio in Paris in 1867 and working on his own in England in 1881.  He benefited from his artistic mother and self-teaching.  Framed in America, his interest in art took on almost exclusively American subjects.  Winslow Homer lived in America at a time of important transformation and was able to capture important emerging characteristics of America.  He became seen as American’s major artist and a distinctly American one.  Critics characterized his work as reflecting that which was big and optimistic in America.  He reflected American individualism.  Homer no doubt was aware that people were putting pressure on him as the representative American artist.  Homer remained largely unaffected by these pressures.  He created his own voice and throughout his life remained dedicated to his vision of how his art should be.  He made sure that his work enabled him to make a living, but otherwise followed his own path.  In the words of Margaret Conrads, Homer’s “art fulfilled the requirement that to be American was to be independent and original.”

References:

Bush, President George W. 2008. “President and Mrs. Bush Discuss Picturing America Initiative.” White House press release, February 26. 

Cikovsky, Nicolai, Jr. 1990.  Winslow Homer. New York: Harry N. Abrans, Inc., Publishers.

Conrads, Margaret C. 2001. Winslow Homer and the Critics: Forging a National Art in the 1870s. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Gallati, Barbara Dayer. 2000 “Women in Modern American Life.”  In Winslow Homer: Illustrating America, eds. Marilyn S. Kushner, Barbara Daye Galloti, and Linda S. Ferber. Brooklyn: Brooklyn Museum of Art.

Harrison, Tony. 2004. Winslow Homer in England.  Ocean Park, ME: Hornby.

Homer, Winslow. 1861. Drawing. Harper’s Weekly, March 16, 1861.

Johns, Elizabeth. 2002. Winslow Homer: The Nature of Observation. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Powell, Richard J. 1988. “Introduction.” In Winslow Homer’s Images of Blacks, eds. Peter H. Wood and Karen C.C. Dalton. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Robertson, Bruce. 1990. Reckoning with Winslow Homer: His Late Paintings and Their Influence. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art.

Wilmerding, John. 1972. Winslow Homer. New York: Praeger.