White Marec. 1868
In August 1868 Winslow Homer, then working as a free-lance illustrator, visited the White Mountains of New Hampshire. More about this work
About this work
In August 1868 Winslow Homer, then working as a free-lance illustrator, visited the White Mountains of New Hampshire. As early as the 1820s, American artists used the White Mountains as a setting for landscape paintings. Unlike Thomas Cole (1802-1848) and Asher Durand (1796-1886), who focused on the unspoiled wilderness, Homer turned his attention to other tourists. He made this oil sketch as a study for the horse in a large oil painting The Bridal Path, White Mountains (1868; Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts).
Text from the Cleveland Museum of Art.
How it was made
- Oil on panel
- Oil paint on prepared wooden boards, usually oak in the north and poplar in Italy. The rigid, smooth surface suits fine detail and thin, glowing glazes.
- Oil paint
- Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.
Winslow Homer
American, 1836–1910 · Born in Boston, Massachusetts; died in Prouts Neck, Maine.
Homer began as an illustrator, covering the Civil War for Harper’s Weekly, and first made his name in painting with scenes of soldiers and country life. A stay at the fishing village of Cullercoats on the English coast in 1881–82 turned him towards the sea, and from 1883 he lived at Prouts Neck, Maine, painting the Atlantic in all weathers. He was also a fluent watercolourist in the Adirondacks, Canada and the Caribbean, and The Gulf Stream draws on those southern journeys.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Cleveland Museum of Art has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1958.33
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
- Type
- Painting
- Department
- American Painting and Sculpture
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
