Every Thursday, as part of my personal “enriched environment” initiative, I post a piece of art, usually from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which recently released online some 400,000 high-resolution images of its collection. All artwork will show a sun (or sunlight) somewhere.
I won’t name the piece or the artist, but instead invite you to study the art and post a comment addressing one or more of these questions:
- What is going on in this picture?
- What do you see that makes you say that?
- What more can you find?
If you have another idea, run with it.
Special Update! The New York Times website does this same exercise every Monday with a news photo that is uncaptioned and contains no text (click!). The Times asks viewers the same three questions:
- What is going on in this picture?
- What do you see that makes you say that?
- What more can you find?
However, at the end of the week, the Times posts the background information on the picture. So, I’ve decided to do the same. I’ll still post an unlabeled piece of art on Thursday. But return on Sunday (for the Sunny Sundays post!) and you’ll find an update on the artwork here.
Note: To embiggen the image, click on it!
The Bather
Artist: Winslow Homer (American, Boston, Massachusetts 1836–1910 Prouts Neck, Maine)
Date: 1899
Medium: Watercolor and graphite on off-white wove paper
Dimensions: 14 7/16 x 21 1/16 in. (36.7 x 53.5 cm)
Classification: Drawings
Hello Bruce,
Looks like Winslow Homer is back! On a different beach this time (Nassau?), with people of color, no less. At least, those are things I can divine from a quick first look. It also looks like a study, a preliminary sketch for a painting to come. I noticed the broad strokes of the watercolor and the apparent lack of definition, although look what he creates with so little. The contrast of the blues of the water with the darkness of the swimmer’s skin is stunning and my very first thought was “Moonlight”, that extraordinary film released earlier this year. I will say no more about that, but if you haven’t seen it, hold this image in your head when you do (I know you have seen it, Bruce, so you will know what I am talking about!).
The man in the water doesn’t look exactly happy to be there, perhaps the water is too cold (but in Nassau?). There’s another dark-skinned swimmer to the left, clearly submerged in the water, so perhaps he’s having a better time. I love the depth created with so very little, the variations in the blues of the water, the smudge of dark green and sliver of beige that creates an entire scene of the land, and the sweep of those flags and pennants off to the right. So much color in so little space! I cannot stop looking at the swimmer, how the torso is so clearly defined with the choice of colors, the range of browns, going to deepest sienna perhaps, then the streaks of white. The resulting totality puts me right there.
Thank you, Bruce.
Love and regards, as ever.
This man in the water looks perturbed. What’s bringing on his sour face? I think it has something to do with the other man who is swimming towards him. The man in the center of the picture may be trying to get away from him. The way his right arm is bent suggests he is walking or trying to walk quickly through the waist-deep water to escape the guy who is persuing him. I don’t think this is a happy picture, and the gray skies and flags blowing in the strong wind don’t help, either.
Sun appears to be beaming down from overhead and slightly to the left. This painting looks more like a study for a future painting than a finished product. For example, the water is painted with wavy brush strokes that leave many sections of the white paper its on untouched. It looks unnatural, like the painter didn’t bother to completely color the ocean in.
The young man in the center of the painting seems to be scowling at something in his right hand. His right hand look closed, like there’s something in it.
The other man, swimming in the distance on the left, is completely lacking in facial features, which you can see if you click on the painting to enlarge it. That’s interesting.
The flags blowing in the wind indicate that the wind is pretty strong. And even though there is a lot of evidence that the sun is shining, the sky is mostly gray.
By the way if you enlarge the painting you’ll see Winslow Homer’s name in the lower left corner, and the word “Nassau” in the lower right. I’ve never been to Nassau but I’d sure like to swim in the ocean there.