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Lot Essay
The present work was published as an illustration for Herbert Palmer's translation of Homer's The Odyssey, printed by Houghton Mifflin in 1929.
No small feat for an illustrator to create imagery for one of the best known texts in history, The Odyssey, the publisher Houghton Mifflin contacted Newell Convers Wyeth, the leading illustrator of the time. The artist was already beloved by the public for his work for Scribner’s Classic, illustrating such colorful stories as Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe, and his work was in high demand.
Wyeth was a student of Howard Pyle, the “father of American illustration,” at his eponymous school of art. Under Pyle's tutelage, Wyeth honed his technical skills while developing his innate ability for narrative and drama on the canvas. Pyle thought illustration was the only authentically American art form and subsequently instilled in Wyeth a sense of confidence and daring. As Christine B. Podmaniczky writes, Pyle “taught the ‘tricks’ of his trade, such as his hallmark emphasis on dramatic moment by marking it in stark contrast between bright light and deep shadow, a forceful use of diagonals in the composition, and the placement of figures in the foreground to lure the viewer into the picture.” (N.C. Wyeth: Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, vol. I, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, 2008, p. 23)
Discussing his approach to the illustration of literature, N.C. Wyeth wrote that it is the illustrator's purpose to “be engaged as a potent addition to an author’s works and not merely a collection of pictures starring for themselves, bent on dividing the reader's attention and further depleting the splendid illusions created by the text...Consequently his initial demand of the illustrator is to strike at the very heart of a story; to paint in vivid colors and masses, bold statements of the important characters.” (“A Suggestion and a Comment on Illustrating Fiction,” New York Times, October 13, 1912) Perhaps no better statement describes Wyeth’s series of sixteen oil paintings for The Odyssey of Homer illustrations. Using a vivid palette applied with his characteristically stylized yet painterly brushstroke, Wyeth illustrated Homer’s classic tale with a vigor that parallels and compliments the drama of The Odyssey.
In Homer’s The Odyssey, Odysseus faces many perils and challenges on a decades’ long journey to get home to Ithaca, and his beloved wife Penelope, following the Trojan War. After seven years of being held captive on an island by the nymph Calypso, Zeus ordered that she release Odysseus. Once Odysseus is freed, he builds a raft to continue homeward and is given food and clothing from Calypso. Neptune, the sea god also known as Poseidon in the Greek translation, is an enemy of Odysseus throughout the saga. The Raft of Odysseus (Neptune Battles with Odysseus) depicts a dramatic scene in which Neptune creates violent winds and rains and destroys Odysseus’ raft in another attempt to derail Odysseus’ return home. The present work was printed in the 1929 edition of The Odyssey alongside a passage of text describing Neptune’s wrathful actions, when, “…a great wave broke on high and madly plunging whirled his raft about; far from the raft he fell and sent the rudder flying from his hand. The mast snapped in the middle under the fearful tempest of opposing winds that struck, and far in the sea canvas and sail-yard fell. The water held him long submerged; he could not rise at once after the crash of the great wave, for the clothing which divine Calypso gave him weighed him down. At length, however, he came up, spitting from his mouth the bitter brine which plentifully trickled also from his head. Yet even then, spent as he was, he did not forget his raft, but pushing on amid the waves laid hold of her, and in her middle got a seat and so escaped death’s ending. But her the great wave drove along its current, up and down.” (C.H. Palmer, trans., The Odyssey of Homer, Boston, Massachusetts, 1929, pp. 66-67)
The drama of the scene is heightened in The Raft of Odysseus (Neptune Battles with Odysseus) through Wyeth’s brilliant use of artistic devices. A vivid jewel tone palette covers much of the canvas, with striking turquoises, emeralds and violets applied in brushwork that suggests movement in both the intense swelling of the sea and storm clouds swarming above. The ominous dark clouds are a stark contrast to the white foam of the wave that looms over Odysseus. The composition echoes Pyle’s teachings as well; Odysseus, the main protagonist in the story, is in the foreground as he clings to the raft with its broken mast jutting out from the water, while Neptune is positioned at a diagonal that continues from Odysseus through the wave to the upper right. The result of Wyeth’s adept work in The Raft of Odysseus (Neptune Battles with Odysseus) is a powerful image that brings to life for readers the mythical drama of this significant piece of literature.
No small feat for an illustrator to create imagery for one of the best known texts in history, The Odyssey, the publisher Houghton Mifflin contacted Newell Convers Wyeth, the leading illustrator of the time. The artist was already beloved by the public for his work for Scribner’s Classic, illustrating such colorful stories as Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe, and his work was in high demand.
Wyeth was a student of Howard Pyle, the “father of American illustration,” at his eponymous school of art. Under Pyle's tutelage, Wyeth honed his technical skills while developing his innate ability for narrative and drama on the canvas. Pyle thought illustration was the only authentically American art form and subsequently instilled in Wyeth a sense of confidence and daring. As Christine B. Podmaniczky writes, Pyle “taught the ‘tricks’ of his trade, such as his hallmark emphasis on dramatic moment by marking it in stark contrast between bright light and deep shadow, a forceful use of diagonals in the composition, and the placement of figures in the foreground to lure the viewer into the picture.” (N.C. Wyeth: Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, vol. I, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, 2008, p. 23)
Discussing his approach to the illustration of literature, N.C. Wyeth wrote that it is the illustrator's purpose to “be engaged as a potent addition to an author’s works and not merely a collection of pictures starring for themselves, bent on dividing the reader's attention and further depleting the splendid illusions created by the text...Consequently his initial demand of the illustrator is to strike at the very heart of a story; to paint in vivid colors and masses, bold statements of the important characters.” (“A Suggestion and a Comment on Illustrating Fiction,” New York Times, October 13, 1912) Perhaps no better statement describes Wyeth’s series of sixteen oil paintings for The Odyssey of Homer illustrations. Using a vivid palette applied with his characteristically stylized yet painterly brushstroke, Wyeth illustrated Homer’s classic tale with a vigor that parallels and compliments the drama of The Odyssey.
In Homer’s The Odyssey, Odysseus faces many perils and challenges on a decades’ long journey to get home to Ithaca, and his beloved wife Penelope, following the Trojan War. After seven years of being held captive on an island by the nymph Calypso, Zeus ordered that she release Odysseus. Once Odysseus is freed, he builds a raft to continue homeward and is given food and clothing from Calypso. Neptune, the sea god also known as Poseidon in the Greek translation, is an enemy of Odysseus throughout the saga. The Raft of Odysseus (Neptune Battles with Odysseus) depicts a dramatic scene in which Neptune creates violent winds and rains and destroys Odysseus’ raft in another attempt to derail Odysseus’ return home. The present work was printed in the 1929 edition of The Odyssey alongside a passage of text describing Neptune’s wrathful actions, when, “…a great wave broke on high and madly plunging whirled his raft about; far from the raft he fell and sent the rudder flying from his hand. The mast snapped in the middle under the fearful tempest of opposing winds that struck, and far in the sea canvas and sail-yard fell. The water held him long submerged; he could not rise at once after the crash of the great wave, for the clothing which divine Calypso gave him weighed him down. At length, however, he came up, spitting from his mouth the bitter brine which plentifully trickled also from his head. Yet even then, spent as he was, he did not forget his raft, but pushing on amid the waves laid hold of her, and in her middle got a seat and so escaped death’s ending. But her the great wave drove along its current, up and down.” (C.H. Palmer, trans., The Odyssey of Homer, Boston, Massachusetts, 1929, pp. 66-67)
The drama of the scene is heightened in The Raft of Odysseus (Neptune Battles with Odysseus) through Wyeth’s brilliant use of artistic devices. A vivid jewel tone palette covers much of the canvas, with striking turquoises, emeralds and violets applied in brushwork that suggests movement in both the intense swelling of the sea and storm clouds swarming above. The ominous dark clouds are a stark contrast to the white foam of the wave that looms over Odysseus. The composition echoes Pyle’s teachings as well; Odysseus, the main protagonist in the story, is in the foreground as he clings to the raft with its broken mast jutting out from the water, while Neptune is positioned at a diagonal that continues from Odysseus through the wave to the upper right. The result of Wyeth’s adept work in The Raft of Odysseus (Neptune Battles with Odysseus) is a powerful image that brings to life for readers the mythical drama of this significant piece of literature.