Winslow Homer and the critics in the 1870s

Magazine Antiques, August, 2001 by Margaret C. Conrads

When Winslow Homer exhibited Prisoners from the Front (Pl. II) at the National Academy of Design in New York City in 1866, the thirty-year-old Boston native received the highest praise of any artist in the exhibition. [1] Such success was quite extraordinary, for even though he had an established reputation as an illustrator, Homer had only been painting seriously for about five years. The Civil War canvas was applauded because, as the artist and critic Eugene Benson (1837-1908) noted in the New York Evening Post, it was "[the most] comprehensive art work that has been painted to express some of the most vital facts of our war." [2] What the critics appreciated most was that Homer perfectly balanced a factual and symbolic representation of the conflict in a style that, although broader in technique than the work of most of his colleagues, wonderfully delineated all dimensions of the story and thus appropriately supported the subject. In doing so, Homer created a work that was recognized as uniquely American and as a historical subject weighed in at the top of the hierarchy of art.

During the fifteen years after he painted Prijoners from the Front, Homer was the artist who garnered the most consistent attention from the press, which designated him America's young artist of promise. Their relationship in the 1870s is intriguing, particularly in light of the fact that Homer's independent spirit--both artistic and personal--has repeatedly been used as evidence that he paid little attention to other artists' works or to what was said about him. [3] No doubt, Homer created a persona that encouraged such thinking, but in doing so, he successfully veiled a more complex individual, one fully aware of the critics' voices.

Homer's output and the response to it between 1866 and 1881 was tremendously varied, but only twice-in 1872 with The Country School (Pl. I) and in 1876 with Breezing Up (Pl. V) -- did he completely right n the eyes of the press. While individual works or qualities were highly regarded, Homer never fully met the critics' high expectations, and he caught both their ire and their applause--sometimes simultaneously. A consideration of Homer's paintings during this period with their critiques provides a better understanding of the symbiotic relationship that developed between the artist and these burgeoning tastemakers at a time when the corps of critics was finding its own way and the artist was searching for his.

The primary force driving American artists and critics in the years following the Civil War was the desire to find an identifiable national artistic expression that could vie with those of the European nations with whom the United States jockeyed for power, most notably England, France, and Germany Native landscape painting, which had held sway since the early 1840s from the easels of such artists as Asher Brown Durand (1796-1886) and Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900), was challenged on more than one front. The American Pre-Raphaelites, the most famous of whom is William Trost Richards (1833-1905), were guided by the writings of English art theorist John Ruskin (1819-1900), whose truth-to-nature dictum prescribed the precise replication of the natural world as the basis for art. [4] The art critic James Jackson Jarves (1818-1888) offered an opposite approach, one rooted in the belief that art should be based in universal truths through which nature is interpreted. [5]

There were several reasons for these competing viewpoints, including the fact that a new generation of artists came to the fore during the Civil War. In addition, as a writer for the New York World observed in 1868, the wealthy mercantile community was displaying a greater interest in art, particularly in contemporary European productions, which were increasingly more available. [6] Moreover, the perceived inferiority of the American works displayed at the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris may have encouraged younger artists to look more to Europe for their inspiration and training. [7] In any event, the changes in American painting were tangible by the end of the 1860s. Clarence Cook (1828-1900) of the New-York Tribune noted as he viewed the 1868 National Academy of Design's annual exhibition that "the Fine Arts in this country are in a state of revolution." [8]

As American artists searched for appropriate subjects, styles, and their proper relationships during the 1870s, art critics experienced their own maturation as professionals. Journalism on the whole underwent a transformation after the Civil War as a result of changes in technology and most importantly due to an editorial sea change. Newspapers and magazines expanded in scope and content; the reporting of hard news replaced some publications' dependence on party ties; and cultural critics, most notably on art, became more vocal as frequent contributors and regular staff members. Strong opinions, from conservative to radical, were expressed by these new newspaper critics of the early 1870s, among the most prominent of whom were the aforementioned Cook, William Crary Brownell (1851-1928) of the World, Theodore Grannis of the New York Commercial Advertiser, George W Hows of the New York Evening Express, Daniel O'Connnell Townley (1824-1873) in the New York Evening Mail, and George Sheldon (1818-1916) of the Eve ning Post. In magazines, Susan Nichols Carter (1835-1896) at Appleton's Journal and the Art Journal, Earl Shinn (1838-1886) in the Nation, and Samuel Stillman Conant and Eugene Benson in various publications including the Galaxy, also provided essays on art matters as well as exhibition reviews. In the 1860s, this dedicated band of writers was joined by Charles de Kay (1848-1935) in the New York Times, William Laffan in the New York Sun, Samuel Greene Wheeler Benjamin (1837-1914) in Harper's New Monthly Magazine and the American Art Review, and Mariana Griswold van Rensselaer in American Architect and Building News. [9]