Cathy's Art Diary

Comprehensive online course from the National Gallery examining aspects of their current Winslow Homer exhibition. Over three weeks six speakers guided us through Homer’s life and work. Week one started with Chris Riopelle curator of the current show guiding us through it. I have heard him talk about it before but you learn something new each time. This was followed by John Fogg from the University of Birmingham talking about Homer’s experiences in the American Civil War and the effect on his art both during and after the war. Week two took us to Europe with Frances Varley from the Courtauld leading us through what art Homer may have seen when he was in Paris in 1866 and how it influenced his work on his return. She saw this as a period of experimentation and recovery from the Civil War. We then moved to England and his time at Cullercoats with Christine Riding from the National Gallery placing the work in the context of his whole career and in the fashion for artists to work in wo...

Interesting  online lecture from the Courtauld Research Forum looking at the meaning of the sea in paintings by Winslow Homer. Maggie Cao from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, took the picture “The Gulf Stream” from 1899 and used it to explore various social and political issues which Homer may have been alluding to. She referenced writing on the nature of the phenomena of the Gulf Stream and how it bought economic benefits to America, opening up trade from South America, but also conflict with the fishing disputes off Canada with the British. She also noted that it was shown shortly after the Spanish-American War. She also said the work may reference, the by then illegal, Slave Trade as it shows a black figure fighting the elements with sugar cane on the desk of the boat and sharks circling the boat. It makes the figure heroic but vulnerable. She introduced me to some beautiful pictures of sponge divers in the Bahamas and I was interest in the idea that most s...