Lot Essay
Having established himself in the 1860s as a leading illustrator in national magazines such as Harper's Weekly, Winslow Homer turned his attention to the development of his career as a fine artist. In 1867 he exhibited his most ambitious work to date, Prisoners from the Front, (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) at the Universal Exposition in Paris and at the same time he began painting images of American rural life. The resulting paintings, such as The Bird Catchers of 1865, reveal clear, direct and simple truths--qualities which would come to define Homer's finest paintings for the rest of his career.
A light-filled painting that captures the essence of childhood in post-Civil War rural America, The Bird Catchers recalls Winslow Homer's finest genre paintings from the mid 1860s. The Bird Catchers depicts three young boys lying in a hayfield in front of a small wooden cage used to catch birds. In the distance the roof line of an imposing barn appears above a tall hedgerow, suggesting that the boys are resting in a field not far from the farmyard. The boys lie quietly in the field, nestled among sheaves of freshly mown hay, and wait patiently for a bird to enter their cage. With the bright summer sun shining off their straw hats, the boys remain close to the security of the farm, yet are free to pursue their own activities and interests with freedom and independence.
While The Bird Catchers reflects themes of the innocence and freedom of rural life, the painting also evokes more profound issues that were resonant during the era just following the Civil War. The Bird Catchers recalls identical themes of the harvest metaphor and the passage of time so movingly painted in Homer's The Veteran in a New Field (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) also of 1865. In this latter canvas Homer portrays a Union veteran harvesting in a golden field of grain. Now that hostilities have ceased between the North and South, the solitary figure has traded his rifle for a scythe, an indication that the soldier has departed the field of battle and returned to a new field--a wheat field--that evokes a bounteous harvest and an optimistic future. The Bird Catchers also evokes a similar sense of optimism on a more intimate and diminutive scale. The young boys rest in a lush green field in the bright summer sun; they appear alert, confident and at ease in their rural surroundings--heirs to the promise and future of the restored Union.
During the 1860s and 1870s Winslow Homer was actively pursuing two careers--one in commercial illustration and another in the fine arts. Although Homer always aspired to become a painter, he nonetheless found the world of commercial illustration both lucrative and rewarding, as it provided a steady source of income and a means of exposing his name to the general public. These two careers complemented each other, as Homer often reused images or motifs that he found particularly pleasing or successful, sometimes transferring whole compositions or simple vignettes from a painting to a wood engraving or vice versa. Homer used The Bird Catchers in just this manner. The image appeared as a wood engraving in the August 1867 issue of Our Young Folks, where it served as an illustration for a children's literary and illustrated magazine (figure a). Just as The Bird Catchers found resonance with the painting's first owner, so too did the wood engraving provide for a wider audience the same heartfelt themes of the freedom and independence of rural childhood.
This painting will be included in the forthcoming Spanierman Gallery/CUNY/Goodrich/Whitney catalogue raisonn of the works of Winslow Homer.
A light-filled painting that captures the essence of childhood in post-Civil War rural America, The Bird Catchers recalls Winslow Homer's finest genre paintings from the mid 1860s. The Bird Catchers depicts three young boys lying in a hayfield in front of a small wooden cage used to catch birds. In the distance the roof line of an imposing barn appears above a tall hedgerow, suggesting that the boys are resting in a field not far from the farmyard. The boys lie quietly in the field, nestled among sheaves of freshly mown hay, and wait patiently for a bird to enter their cage. With the bright summer sun shining off their straw hats, the boys remain close to the security of the farm, yet are free to pursue their own activities and interests with freedom and independence.
While The Bird Catchers reflects themes of the innocence and freedom of rural life, the painting also evokes more profound issues that were resonant during the era just following the Civil War. The Bird Catchers recalls identical themes of the harvest metaphor and the passage of time so movingly painted in Homer's The Veteran in a New Field (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) also of 1865. In this latter canvas Homer portrays a Union veteran harvesting in a golden field of grain. Now that hostilities have ceased between the North and South, the solitary figure has traded his rifle for a scythe, an indication that the soldier has departed the field of battle and returned to a new field--a wheat field--that evokes a bounteous harvest and an optimistic future. The Bird Catchers also evokes a similar sense of optimism on a more intimate and diminutive scale. The young boys rest in a lush green field in the bright summer sun; they appear alert, confident and at ease in their rural surroundings--heirs to the promise and future of the restored Union.
During the 1860s and 1870s Winslow Homer was actively pursuing two careers--one in commercial illustration and another in the fine arts. Although Homer always aspired to become a painter, he nonetheless found the world of commercial illustration both lucrative and rewarding, as it provided a steady source of income and a means of exposing his name to the general public. These two careers complemented each other, as Homer often reused images or motifs that he found particularly pleasing or successful, sometimes transferring whole compositions or simple vignettes from a painting to a wood engraving or vice versa. Homer used The Bird Catchers in just this manner. The image appeared as a wood engraving in the August 1867 issue of Our Young Folks, where it served as an illustration for a children's literary and illustrated magazine (figure a). Just as The Bird Catchers found resonance with the painting's first owner, so too did the wood engraving provide for a wider audience the same heartfelt themes of the freedom and independence of rural childhood.
This painting will be included in the forthcoming Spanierman Gallery/CUNY/Goodrich/Whitney catalogue raisonn of the works of Winslow Homer.