Monday, August 22, 2011

Winslow Homer

Today we feature a portrait of Winslow Homer. He was one of the most famous artists of the 1800's. One of his most famous paintings was called "Snap the Whip", and showed children playing in front of a school. 

Winslow Homer got his start as an illustrator for Harper's Weekly in the Civil War. To begin with, he was responsible for transferring photographs taken by Matthew Brady onto wood blocks so a likeness of the photograph could be printed. This was done by creating line art of the photograph, and then carving the line art into a block of wood. The wood block was then used to "stamp" the picture into the newspaper. As time went on, he was used by Harper's Weekly as a War Illustrator, and he was sent to Civil War battles to draw the scenes of battle. After the war he became famous for his paintings.


  1. That must have been a tough and tedious job You talk about being a patient man. Good work Winslow

  2. PJM: If you are doing illustrators this week, how about posting one of their works with their portrait?

  3. If you haven't seen this painting by Winslow yet, check it out on line. It's very well done. Nice detail. Snap the whip is a timeless game. The painting is from the 1870's and 100 years latter I was playing it. They probably don't let kids play it anymore in the school yard because the kids on the end of the whip tend to go flying off. Thats the fun of it. There are alot of games we used to play that aren't allowed at recess anymore. How did we ever survive? I'm not completly nuts though, I do believe lawn darts was a very bad idea.

  4. What a dapper looking gentleman!

    WHy is it that no one dresses up anymore?? Dang, even when I go to church on Sunday there are people with just polo shirts and sneakers!!! No one holds any respect anymore.

    In my time you wore a suit and a hat even to a high school graduation!!!

    Now it seems that anything goes. And I ain't too happy about some of the young people who "do" go to church and keep those danged baseball caps on their head.
    We used to have a Priest, Father Langan, and if you so much as were caught chewing gum in church he would take his trusty cane and whack you!! And you know what??? The parents wouldn't bring a lawsuit against him or the church, they would wack you when you got home for embarrassing them in church!!!! God, I miss the way it used to be.

    And Father Langan used to walk the streets at dusk to make sure that all of us kids were going home and / or behaving ourselves. And boy, if we weren't!!!

    Whatever happened to our familiar and stable institutions? I just don't get it.
    And I agree with the young man Dave 107 when he writes about recess.
    Kids today are treated too daintily. We are raising a nation of daisies instead of backbone!!!
    Keep posting the pictures, PJM, and young man, I'll keep looking at em.

  5. Winlow Homer's "Snap the Whip"

  6. Winslow Homer is one of my favorite American artists. By the way, he created a series of watercolors in Santiago, Cuba back in the 1880's. To see some of them, you can google "Winslow Homer Santiago". Just thought I'd continue last week's theme. :-)

  7. Baseball hats! Grrrr! A number of years ago, I think 1993 or so, Hubbie and I toured the Smithsonian American History Museum. At that time, once on the hour they raise up the original Star Spangled Banner in a dimly lit room to the sound of the National Anthem. Some young lout was standing by us with his *&!! baseball hat on! Lout somehow got the message tho and reluctantly took it off. Grrr.

  8. Dang! Your blogs are terrific. Please keep up the good work. Thanks especially for this old pic of old Homer! Dang!

  9. Marie, don't blame the baseball hat. Blame the wearer. Some of us guys no longer have the flowing locks of our youth. Baseball hats are a nice alternative to a rug. Be that as it may, proper etiquette should be exercised.


  10. You all are correct. I'm a playground aide, and we don't allow the kids to play snap the whip. Unfortunately all it takes is one injury and parents that sue. It's very frustrating I know.

    While I was an exchange student in England, the older students had quite a fun time explaining to the younger students that they needed to remove their caps when they were inside a church. They did so grudgingly.