Winslow Homer at The Clark, Again . . . It Just Makes Sense

In his Aug. 2 review of the Winslow Homer show now at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA, Holland Cotter wrote in The New York Times that the show is “about two histories, major and minor, but interlaced: Homer’s history as an artist, and the history of the two people who collected his art, Francine and Sterling Clark...” Certainly the Clarks came to admire Homer above all 19th-century American artists. Beginning in 1915, Sterling Clark amassed the country’s largest collection of Homer. Currently, the Clark is exhibiting a huge Homer show — really a repeat of one first presented in autumn 2005. Since the museum’s crowded season is summer, when thousands of tourists visit, the 2005 show drew sparse attendance. “It just seemed to make sense” to remount the show with a few tweaks, according to senior curator Richard Rand. Homer, of course is remembered most for his gorgeous painted landscapes and pictures of the sea, some including strangely reanimated people painted with perfect bodies. For Homer, nature was real, not idealized or glorified. Not for him the divine awesomeness of nature, the magnificent sublime painted by Frederick Church. Homer’s nature, always beautiful, could be inviting or dangerous, passive or frightening; but it was always as he saw it, not as he imagined it. Homer was also an artist who needed to make a living. He made etchings, gorgeous watercolors, lithographs, even photographs and book illustrations. He also produced an astonishing group of wood engravings, which hang crowded together on a single wall: They are wonderful. An artist of restraint and great control, Homer seemed to loosen up in the wood engravings. “Fireworks on the Night of the Fourth of July” is a crowded, active piece which somehow makes sense out of chaos. And the comedy of a firework landing on a man’s top hat is delicious. These works record ordinary, post-Civil War life with gusto, charm — an attribute not often associated with Homer — and his eagle eye for the telling detail. “Undertow,” surely one of Homer’s most celebrated oils, is a disturbing picture. Two women cling together; they may be near death, they may have been rescued just in time. Their two male rescuers look away, perhaps too troubled by impending death. Both men have the perfect physiques of Bellows virility, and there is something homoerotic about them. (Homer never married and apparently lived his life alone.) “The Bridle Path, White Mountains” is another highlight of the show. A beautifully dressed young woman rides sidesaddle on a white horse against a hazy, rocky landscape that seems to shimmer in the heat. Then there is “Sleigh Ride,” a marvelous composition of a horse-pulled sleigh about to disappear over the top of a snowy, surprisingly blue and white hill. Homer lived most of his last 25 years in Prouts Neck, Maine, where his family had an estate. His studio, which can still be visited, is only 75 yards from the sea, and he produced magnificent , unsentimental seascapes there. “West Point, Prout’s Neck” (the artist’s title oddly misspelled the location’s name) is filled with broad, liquid brush work, a geyser of delicate foam, and a horizon and sky of red and pink and gray. You can almost hear the sea and feel wetness in the roiling deep greens, gray and white in the dramatic “Summer Squall.” “Winslow Homer: Making Art, Making History” continues at the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, through Sept. 8. The museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. until Sept.1, after which it will be closed on Tuesdays.For information, call 413-458-2303 or go to www.clarkart.edu.