SEA NOTES

Winslow Homer:
Crosscurrents

With this inaugural issue of SEA NOTES, we feature the newly opened exhibition on Winslow Homer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City titled Crosscurrents, which is running from April 11 through July 31st, 2022.

Approaching the special exhibition gallery on the second floor of the Met, the visitor's experience and expectations are set up with a view through a window cut out of the wall, the iconic painting of The Gulf Stream.

Once you enter the galleries and turn right, the painting disappears and is not to be seen again until later in the show. The exhibition is set up following the themes and topics that are current with the works of Homer. One begins their journey with The Civil War and Reconstruction gallery, a collection of his early works, including such paintings as The Veteran in a New Field and The Cotton Pickers.

These two paintings contain themes that resonate with the times after the Civil War; The Veteran depicts a soldier just returning from the war wielding a scythe, which could be considered a weapon, in a peaceful endeavor. In the painting The Cotton Pickers, the other side of the war is depicted, enslaved people still working the fields and pondering what the future will hold for them. The paintings in these galleries show that Homer is moving from his illustration work into more in-depth topics dealing with human nature and allegories showing the human struggle within the forces of nature.

Continuing through the exhibition one moves through the gallery Waterslide, rooms full of works depicting optimism and stability. The oil painting Breezing Up, on loan from The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., is one such painting. Depicting four children and an adult, enjoying a day sailing in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Breezing Up contains hopeful symbolism such as an anchor at the bow. But, as the wall chat states, “seemingly lighthearted works also intimate darker themes foreshadowing the artist's preoccupation with the risks involved in maritime life,” the works hint at the struggles of man with nature but with a lighter tone.

These struggles of humanity prominently appear in paintings in the next section titled Rescue. As the title suggests these are Homer's paintings of shipwrecks and rescue, obvious depictions of the endeavor with the dangers of nature. The iconic painting, Lifeline, on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, is a work teeming with forces of nature that threaten life on the seas. This work shows a change in style with the weight and monumentality of the figures, a modern heroic depiction of the battle with nature as a natural opponent. It is also a very sensuous painting showing a prone female in the arms of a man, you can even see a bit of her skin on her legs, which at the time was risqué.

Beginning in 1884 Homer started frequent winter visits to tropical locations, Bahamas, Key West, and Bermuda, where his primary medium was watercolors. Many of these paintings are in the next section of the exhibition, Along the Gulf Stream. Unlike his watercolors finished while he was in Cullercoats, England, these are much lighter in style and composition. Some are dazzling in their representation of the color and light of the region. One is struck by the glow and brilliance of many of these works, they are pure of color and with a dashing technique. This gallery contains important paintings by Homer, and it is interesting to see the changes in the themes in his works while keeping a consistent motif, telling stories about struggle, tension, hope, and optimism. As the viewer advances through the gallery there is a slow build to what is coming in the next gallery. As you approach the room the wall text lets you know what is around the corner, titled The Gulf Stream.

The inspiration for this exhibition, both thematically and in its exploration of racial politics and human endurance, is the painting The Gulf Stream. It is the first painting that one sees when entering the show, then in the middle of the exhibition one views it with a deeper probe into its meaning and ideas, and through a clever window cut out of a wall, it is the very last painting seen before departing the exhibition. The painting is an icon but to experience this work, supported by others of Homer’s oeuvre, is to experience it anew. The Gulf Stream, with the works that preceded it and the ones surrounding it, is truly enriched in its depth of story and meaning.

The sense of struggle and perseverance does not stop here. In the next gallery are his late seascapes from Prout's Neck, Maine from the 1890s. These are powerful works that exhibit the power of nature and the unforgiving, dangerous aspects of the sea. Keeping with his themes of “human endurance amid the forces of nature,” Homer continues his exploration of these questions.

The last gallery before entering the legacy room is titled Mortality. A continuation of the themes of conflict and struggle but painted at an older age. Ending the show is the painting Fox Hunt, from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, painted in 1892. While this work is not one of his last and was painted eighteen years before his death, it is appropriate to end the exhibition with this work. Many see this painting as a depiction of Winslow Homer’s life. It is one exhibiting natural selection but reversed, the crows are the predators, and the Fox is the prey. The composition is also structured so that the view is from the hunted, the fox running for his life in the snow. Homer also managed to get a bit of the ocean in the background.

On September 29, 1910, Homer died at the age of 74 in Prout’s Neck, the painting e Rapids still unfinished on his easel.

The exit is a tribute to Homer’s legacy and his view of his watercolors; he felt that he would be remembered by his watercolors. And finally, as one leaves the exhibition, they are greeted by The Gulf Stream for the last time, in the distance through a window.

This is an exhibition well worth traveling to experience, more than once. With 88 works of art, it is the largest overview of Homer’s work in over 25 years, a show that puts a new light on Homer and his times, and his works. It is on view until July 31, 2022, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

by Stephen Bluto