Winslow
Homer and The Critics
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
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The critics are, in fact, irrelevant to
this œuvre of definition. There are only images contained within
passages of classical beauty (the sky and hills of Snap The Whip,
say). Homer's only intention is to "fix vertigos," create a
definite statement. That sunlit sail, the glowing stove, the perfect geometry,
are asseverations and anchors around which a picture is built. Add a figure
correctly observed, with an expression understood, and place it, say, fishing
at a weir, and you have Homer's fresh observations. |
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Every painting, for him, is a set of
problems he sets himself or finds. The sparks flying up from a campfire are
definitely traced and painted with the same precision and authority as
moonlight in a river, the one with a fine orange brush and the other with
swashes of white. A girl sitting on a wall creates the torment of elongated thighs and foreshortened feet suffering critics complain of. "Damnably ugly" says Henry James, whose braces snapped at the sight of these pictures, to all appearances. |
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