Winslow Homer: America's Painter
Written by Mario Ritter
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VOICE ONE:
I’m Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Barbara Klein with People In America in VOA Special English. Today we tell about Winslow Homer, considered to be the greatest American artist of the nineteenth century. Homer created pictures that showed the relationship between humans and nature. The strong, clear images he drew and painted matched the wild, developing and proud United States of the late eighteen hundreds.
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VOICE ONE:
Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer was the second of three sons of Henrietta Benson and Charles Savage Homer. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts in eighteen thirty-six and grew up in Cambridge. His father was an importer of tools and other goods. His mother was a painter. Winslow got his interest in drawing and painting from his mother. But his father also supported his son’s interest. Once, on a business trip to London, Charles Homer bought a set of drawing examples for his son to copy. Young Winslow used these to develop his early skill.
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Winslow’s older brother Charles went to Harvard University in Cambridge. The family expected Winslow would go, too. But, at the time, Harvard did not teach art. So Winslow’s father found him a job as an assistant in the trade of making and preparing pictures for printed media. At age nineteen, Winslow learned the process of lithography. This work was the only formal training that Winslow ever received in art.
VOICE ONE:
Winslow did this work for about two years. Then the young man decided to become an independent illustrator, someone who makes drawings and pictures for a living.
He worked in Boston for a few years, drawing illustrations for stories in several newspapers. He also did work for a magazine that was different from any other of the time. Harper’s Weekly, in New York City, needed good illustrations and had lots of space for them. The young Winslow began to establish himself as an artist in demand.
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In eighteen fifty-nine, Winslow Homer moved to New York City to work for Harper’s Weekly. Homer also started to paint seriously. He hoped to go to Europe to study painting. But, something would intervene that would change the direction of Winslow Homer’s artistic work. Harper’s magazine would send him to draw pictures of the biggest event in American history since independence. It was the Civil War between the Union and the rebel southern states.
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VOICE ONE:
Winslow Homer went to Washington, D.C., in eighteen sixty-one. He drew pictures of the campaign of Union Army General George McClellan the next year. His pictures of the war showed the many ways that conflicts affect people.
In one illustration, he showed Union soldiers on horses advancing heroically. The Southern Confederate soldiers are shown forced under the feet of the horses, while the horsemen hold their swords high. The illustration is called “The War for the Union, Eighteen Sixty-Two — A Cavalry Charge.”
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In another famous illustration, “The Army of the Potomac — A Sharp-Shooter on Picket Duty,” Homer showed a different side of war. A soldier sitting in a tree is holding a rifle. He is aiming at a target far in the distance. Many critics say the picture shows the cold, mechanical nature of warfare, bringing death to the unsuspecting.
"Home, Sweet Home," 1863, oil on canvas
Winslow Homer also made a famous painting called “Home, Sweet Home.” It shows two soldiers listening to music played by military musicians. This was common during the Civil War. At the end of the day, musicians on both sides would play to raise the spirits of soldiers. Often they would play the song “Home, Sweet Home.”
Homer painted two Union soldiers preparing a meal. The musicians are in the distance. The two soldiers appear to be stopped in the middle of their preparations by thoughts of home and family.
