Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1915-10-31
LITTLE VERSES AND BIG NAMES

4 MOST interesting and important
~ exhibition of water colors by
Winslow Homer was opened in
the museum of the Brooklyn Institute
recently ard will remain there on view
until November !. This exhibition com
prises seventy pictures, many of which
have not been heretofore exhibited
! Twelve are the property of the nu-
scum; the rest are loaned by private
collectors. The earliest are two painted
at Gloucester in 1873: the latest is dated
1903.
The subjects are varied; some were
painted at Gloucester, others on the
coast of Maine. One large group is a
souvenir of a summer spent on a farm
in New York state-the summer of
rs; yet others were painted in the Ba-
namas and in the Adirondacks.
Almost all have what may be termed
a distinct human interest. They depict
people in the simple walks of life
with the utmost vividness. They are
real and vital. Winslow Homer was
essentially a realist. He was also a
great genius. He saw clearly and he
recorded accurately what he saw. His
was vigorous, unusual personality.
fiected in his work. He, more than the
majority. of painters, seems to have
used pigments as direct medium of
expression, employing color and form
as writer would use words. He was
always concise and never prosaic; there
was never a word too many nor an ex-
preston that was weak.
Some one once said that one of his
W pnlDTS If
painted by an intellectual savage" and
there is in Homer's paintings, especially
his water colors. that primitive strength
which is associated with savagery; yet
they have also the intellectual quality
of works by the masters, and for this
reason they not only stir the imagination
but satisfy the esthetic sense. He ac-
coFaplished that toward which the post
! inlpressionists and so-caIIed modern
lists supposedly strive. but through per
fectly natural expression rather than
affected effort. For this reason 1t is
doubly valua BILE that these water colors
should be exhibited at this time.
Winslow Homer was born in Boston
in 1886 and died at Prout's Neck, Me-,
| in 1910 His first training as an artist
was in photographers shop, where he
remained two years. He was PRACTICAL
Ily self-taught. For seventeen years he
made his living as an illustrator. At
the time of the civil war he went TO
Virginia IN the capacity Of special ar
tiSt for Harper's Weekly. and his first
/ paintings in oils were OF the home life
Of the negroes. One of these, The Visit
/ Of the Mistress" is here in the National
/ Gallery. being included in the Evans
collection. as well his splendid
/ Coast OF Maine" painted many years
4 later, which many regard as hts mas
terp!ece.
I As an Illustrator Winslow Homer
/ naturally found interest in his themes
the story element was dominant.
| Later. when he began painting pic
| lures, this affected his choice of sub
| jects. But the people he pictured were
| always real people: they were never
/ posing; they were never dragged in to
! create interest; they belonged just
! whore he pictured them. and they are
! always doing something-goiugn atur-
! ally about as in life. 1t is this natural
! ness and simplicity which allures and
gives his pictures enduring Significance.
I His technique. Furthermore, is extra
! ordinarily brilliant, but It was not con-
! sciously selected nor deliberately ac-
! quired. He had something to say and
| he chose the simplest and most natural
| way in which to say it-that was all.
/ He cannot be inflated he can scarcely
| be followed-he was himself and
/ unique. But il is possible to learn
| much from his example.
! The Corcoran Gallery of Art has an
! excellent water color by HomGr, a pic
! ture of lumbermen driving logs on a
rapidly flowing streau. 1t has also an
/ oil painting by this master, q figure of
u nSherwoman on the beach, pre-
. surna bly, first sketch for this painting
! is in the present Brooklyn exhibition.
! In the Boston Museum of Fine Arts
. II his "Alrs Well" familiar to many
/! through frequent reproduction, and in
| the Metropolitan Museum, New York.
! are several of his most notable can
vases. among them The Gulf Stream"
| " MICH was purchased by the museum
upon the recommendation of the entire
jury Of the National Academy of De-
! sign at the time the painting was first
| exhibited.
| The Minneapolis Institute of Art has
recently acquired one of his water
| colors, painted during the season he
| spent in the Bahamas, and feels most
| fortunate In gaining its possession.
| II is sometimes said that water color
| is weak medium, but evidently In the
| hands Of a master THIS is not so. The
Brooklyn institute may well be congrat-
! ulated upon bringing together and
| opening to the PUBLIC even for so brief
| a time this wonderful collection of
! water colors by Wipslow Homer. 1t is
| this institute which purchased for its
| museum a few yeaI6.ago, 1t may be
! remembered. mott Iection Of