Summer 2017

Winslow Homer rode the watercolor movement from its beginnings to its crescendo of popularity, by turns shaping and shaped by the rising interest in the medium. His first sessions of experimental painting in watercolors in 1873 grew out of long practice as an illustrator, using ink and gouache daily, to compose an image for reproduction. His work painted during this summer in Gloucester was different, however, in its bold handling, bright color, and absence of finish. Broad strokes of opaque watercolor and loose, wet passages in the clouds demonstrate a breezy technique paralleling the work of the French Impressionists, who were undertaking similar carefree resort subjects at this same moment. While progressive critics exclaimed over the freshness and originality of these watercolors, conservative viewers were puzzled by the audacity of an artist submitting mere sketches to an exhibition. In fact, the watercolor society’s exhibitions welcomed such material as part of the long tradition of outdoor work in the medium. The Boston painter J. Frank Currier burst onto the watercolor scene in 1879, when his wild views of the countryside near Munich stirred up controversy in New York. Painted on soaked paper, which allowed the washes to run and blur, his landscapes were identified as “impressionist,” although they had little to do with the work of the Parisian independents in the circle of Monet. To Americans, this new style came from the expressionist handling and light- and-dark palette of Currier and the Munich painters, the wet techniques of the Dutch Barbizon school, the simplicity and suggestiveness of Whistler, and the flashing bravura favored by the circle of the Spanish painter in Rome, Mariano Fortuny. American artists confronted this avant garde at the watercolor exhibitions, where examples of the new painting were set against the more conventional, British-based painting of the mainstream. Homer took note of this shocking new work; his second round of Gloucester watercolors, painted in 1880, recovered the broad style of his earlier sketches. The critics, once confused by his sketchiness, now accepted his work as “impressionism.” 2017 Antiques & Fine Art 115 Winslow Homer (1836–1910), Gloucester Harbor, 1873. Watercolor and opaque watercolor with graphite on wove paper, 9½ x 13½ inches. Collection of Cornelia and Meredith Long. J. Frank Currier (1843-1909), White Beeches, ca. 1878-1880. Watercolor on paper, 11¼ x 16 inches. Private collection.