Winslow Homer is revered today both for the powerful and dramatic images he created as well as for his enormous technical skill in watercolor and oil. But it was another medium, engraving, in which the artist first revealed his talents.
Harpers Weekly The Bathe At Newport was published in Harper's Weekly on September 4th 1858. Kids swim, lovers play and splash each other and the sun is shining on a beautiful idyllic 19th century beach day.
Museums such as the Smithsonian American Art Museum, MET New York, National Gallery of Art, MFA Boston, Yale University Art Gallery among others have this engraving in their collections.
Condition: excellent.
About the artist:
Homer learned the fundamentals of draftsmanship at the age of eighteen as an apprentice to the Boston lithographer John H. Bufford. Two years later, in 1857, he established himself as a freelance illustrator, creating original engraving compositions for Ballou's Pictorial Drawing Room Companion and Harper's Weekly. Homer's role in the production of the prints was to draw the image on a block of boxwood. Engravers then carved away everything but the lines drawn on the block, using crosshatching to convey shade and modeling. Finally, the engravers inked the block to produce the print.
Even at such a young age, with little formal art instruction, Homer displayed his skill at composition, creating dynamic and well-balanced images that foreshadow his later masterpieces in oil and watercolor. He even experimented with composite images, in which multiple vignettes are combined to create a rich and full narrative. Homer often chose fashionable people engaged in modern leisure activities as the subjects for his Ballou's and Harper's engravings. hotsell
Product code: Harpers Weekly The Bathe At hotsell Newport September 4th 1858, Winslow Homer Wood Block Engraving