By about 1890, however, Homer left narrative behind to concentrate on the beauty, force, and drama of the sea itself. In their dynamic compositions and richly textured passages, his late seascapes capture the look and feel (and even suggest the sound) of masses of onrushing and receding water. For Homer’s contemporaries, these were the most extravagantly admired of all his works. They remain among his most famous today, appreciated for their virtuoso brushwork, depth of feeling, and hints of modernist abstraction.
H. Barbara Weinberg
Dept of American Paintings & Sculpture, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
I too yearn for the good old days in America when a man could take his canoe out into the water, find a nice hard rock and then smoke his pipe peacefully.
All while not wearing any pants. There is nothing as free, as liberating, as American as feeling the cool breeze coming off the river directly onto your exposed nether regions.
This is what we have lost in our technology sophisticated go, go, go world of tomorrow. Thankfully Homer was there to capture this simpler, freer time. When men were men and often spent a hot summer afternoon, alone and aloof from his fellow man contemplating the beauty of nature while fully exposed to it.
What a time to be alive!
(I’m not the only person who thinks this guy isn’t wearing any pants, right?)
