The Gulf Stream

The Gulf Stream

Homer, Winslow

Oil on Canvas

28 x 49 inches.

1899

Winslow Homer was born on Feb. 24, 1836, in Boston, MA.  In 1860 Homer exhibited his first paintings at the National Academy of Design in New York.  After 1883, the sea became the dominant theme in his work, and by the 1890s he had become generally recognized as one of the leading American painters.  Homer died on Sept 19, 1910, in Prouts Neck, Maine.

http://www.biography.com/people/winslow-homer-9342812

 Of all Homer’s later paintings of men facing the dangers of the sea, this is the culminating masterpiece.  Characteristically, a few significant details – sheared-off mast, bright red flecks on the water, the thrashing sharks – build a story which the viewer is invited to end.

As in many other canvases, such as Breezing Up, the boat is canted sharply, forming a diagonal that should pull the observer directly into the picture.  But the abandoned Black sailor is cut off from us by the menace churning up the dark waters in the foreground.

The Great Artists, Book 3
“Winslow Homer”
Funk & Wagnalls, Inc., New York
1978

All paintings were selected solely on the basis that they fit within the theme of boats or ships, and that I felt emotionally moved by them