The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 37, no. 4

WINSLOW HOMER Fishing Boats, Key West, 1903
In 1881 and 1882 Homer spent several
months in the English fishing village of
Cullercoats rethinking his entire approach
to watercolor. Already a leader in the
American watercolor movement, Homer
returned to surprise his New York contemporaries
with a technique and content
transformed by his exposure to modem
personal and impressionistic manner, his
English work showed a more conventional
notion of the picturesque, delivered in a
monumental and deliberate style. Inside
the Bar, one of the most powerful products
of his Cullercoats experience, demonstrates
the disciplined complexity of
Homer's new technique and its heroic
His fascination with the sea continued
throughout Homer's career, but after
1885, when he began to spend his winters
in the Caribbean, the earlier spontaneous
plein air style returned to modify his
English method. The confidence of his
maturity, earned from thirty years of
constant practice, is evident in A Wall,