1. Shark Week on the discovery channel is just wrapping up, so I've spent a lot of time watching shows about sharks and other ocean dwellers this week with my friends--we even had a Shark Week party, and bought a 6 foot long shark kite to hang from the ceiling. There were cupcakes with Swedish fish on them, and a whole mess of unrelated non-fish themed food. It was pretty excellent. Also, sharks are super smart.
2. My parents and a large chunk of my extended family are going to Cape Cod for the week and I'm pretty envious--I would kill for a crabcake (or several) right now, and I MISS MY FAM!
3. I live in landlocked Indiana, I have an Arabic final in four days, and I want to stick my feet in a sizable body of water.
Today's post will be about ocean-themed art by Winslow Homer. If I weren't so weirdly obsessed with 17th century popes, I would switch my art history area to American to study Winslow Homer. He had so many different phases and styles; his watercolors are stunningly gorgeous and his oil paintings are sometimes edgy, or controversial, or poignant. He was a camp artist during the Civil War, and those works are so worth a look. He dealt with slavery, emancipation, nature, veterans, the ravages of war, and New England in all its rocky glory, among many other subjects. Maine was his safe haven and his place of comfort, and many of these ocean works come from that--although he also spent some time in England and the Carribbean, too. Enjoy. I know I did. And if you are curious about these works, we spent a lot of time on them in my Gilded Age class, and I can give you more info if you so desire! (Trust me, I'm not doing him justice here.)
Breezing Up (A Fair Wind), 1873-1876. Boys playing at men--learning to be fishermen, which will some day be their livelihood. A game, but a very serious one.
Two Girls on the Beach, Tynemouth (1881) One constant through Homer's work is his interest and concern with current problems of the time--here, for instance, with labor and survival. There were brave men on the sea, but there were also brave women on the shore.
The Water Fan (1898-99). You know what is perfect? The blues in this watercolor are perfect. The Art Institute had this as the front image for a recent works on paper show and one of my friends has a massive poster of it in her apartment. It's pretty awesome.
The Life Line (1884), a work showing the removal of passengers, one by one, from a sinking ship. What is interesting about this painting is that both scholars now and commentators in Homer's time used to write about Homer like he WAS a fisherman, instead of just a painter of them. Did he want to be a fishermen? Did he want to feel helpful and rugged? In any case, he captured people who may not have otherwise been portrayed. Two slightly weird facts about The Life Line: it was bought by a tobacco heiress, and the rope is fraying in the pulley, which just makes it even more dramatic. According to people in the know (ie, my friends), this work is in Philly, and the droplets of water on the rope are worth the price of admission. I don't doubt it.
Eagle Head, Manchester (1870) Dog = voyeur, bare legs = scandalous, basically. When this work was printed in a magazine shortly therafter, the legs had been covered up by long bathing costumes and the dog had been replaced by a bathing cap, which amuses me.
Eastern Point Light (1880) Love the monochrome in this work.
Gulf Stream (1899). I find this work straight up horrifying, but also can't look away. A lot of scholarship deals with this painting, which is located in the Met (and let me tell you, I saw it in March and the blood in the water looks even more scary in person). I think a pretty reasonable interpretation is that this is an allegory of emancipation--the man on the ship has been "freed" but not helped, and now the sharks are coming for him. He is in danger, and though there is a ship far far away on the horizon, it probably will not arrive on time. The cane stalks on the deck of the boat may reference his former status as a slave, and they can't be used to help him. The mast has been completely broken off--he has no sail, no luck, and no chance. And the sharks get closer.
Gloucester Sunset (1880), and the only thing I wrote in my notes about this was "watercolor, STUNNING," which pretty much sums it up!I leave you now with a work by one of my favorite poets, my super sister Liz.
On the dangers of open water
—to Herman Melville
A foreign beauty dwells in oceans deep.
It traces through the flowing strands of grass
that twine and twirl beneath the rippling glass
of waves, then breaks upon the shore. In sleep
all sailors dream of siren songs that creep
into our heads and drive us to the mast
of any ships (of any size) that pass.
This beauty we don't understand will sweep
us out to sea. We look for it below
our bows, but if we try to understand
the workings of that beauty we perceive,
we're driven mad by all we cannot know.
We force ourselves to roam between the strands
till, like Narcissus, drown to find reprieve.
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