Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

sonal way controlled by the artist’s knowledge of their tactile and conceptualproperties rather than their precise optical appearance.Painterly RealismFrom after the Civil War through the early twentieth century, thegeneral trend in American art was, in imitation of such European styles asthe Barbizon School and impressionism, toward the painterly—that is, thebroad, obvious brush stroke used to build up forms in a fluid, coloristic wayrather than through line drawing. Three notable later nineteenth-centuryAmerican realist painters who were able to integrate this painterliness —and the outdoor painting usually associated with it—with Native Americantendencies were Winslow Homer (1836–1910), Thomas Eakins (1844–1916),and John La Farge (1835–1910).Homer used everyday, local subjects as vehicles for compositionalexperimentation. Already in his early twenties, he was acknowledged as thecountry’s leading illustrator, although he began to work more and more withoil paints during the later 1860s and then marvelously with watercolors inthe early 1870s. He showed a keen sense for capturing the lifelike appearanceof things in a particular light at a specific time, but he also introducedflat areas of color as well as diagonal and asymmetrical compositional features,probably under the influence of Japanese prints. Unlike the Frenchimpressionists, Homer’s light never challenged the fundamental integrityand weight of the material objects within his realistic pictures.After an 1881 visit to England, Homer began to see nature, especiallythe sea, as a challenging antagonist necessary to engage on a daily basis. In1883 he built a seaside studio in Maine with a large balcony breasting thesea like a ship’s bridge. There he lived and worked in increasing solitude,pursuing his personal battle with the vast forces of the sea, gradually developingthe spare but powerfully epic style of his later years. The rich colorshe had used previously were replaced with a more somber oceanic palette.In Undertow of 1886, two half-drowned young women are dragged from thesea by lifeguards (Figure 6). In this picture, one feels a kind of unresolvedtension between the three-dimensional elements of the figures and the flatterelements of the ocean and the overall narrative representation—or, moresimply, between the right and the left sides of the scene. Flesh and foam seemto share a similar texture of paint, indicating the rougher paint applicationthat characterized his last two decades of work. In these late oils, humanfigures recede, and the drama focuses on the battle of the marine elements—rocks, waves, wind, and weather. He painstakingly studied these outdoor108