Echo of a Distant Drum; Winslow Homer and the Civil War
New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., c1974. Presumed First Edition, First Printing. Hardcover. The format is approximately 11.875 inches by 10,875 inches. 204 pages. Illustrations(per the dust jacket-202 illustrations, including 39 plates in full color) (List of Plates). Chronology. Notes. Bibliography. Illustrated front of dust jacket. Bookplate of previous owner inside the front board. This is a large, heavy, oversized book that if sent outside of the United States will require additional shipping charges. Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters of 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in American art in general. Largely self-taught, Homer began his career working as a commercial illustrator. In 1859, Winslow Homer opened a studio in the Tenth Street Studio Building in New York City, the artistic and publishing capital of the United States. He subsequently took up oil painting and produced major studio works characterized by the weight and density he exploited from the medium. He also worked extensively in watercolor, creating a fluid and prolific œuvre, primarily chronicling his working vacations. Harper's sent Homer to the front lines of the American Civil War (1861–1865), where he sketched battle scenes and camp life, the quiet moments as well as the chaotic ones. Winslow Homer was 25 years old when he set off from New York City to join the U.S. Army in 1861 at the start of the U.S. Civil War. Like most young men going to war that year, he was eager to see action; unlike most, he was not there to fight but to draw. A special artist correspondent for Harper’s Weekly magazine, Homer sketched what he saw of soldiers’ lives while he was embedded with the army in Virginia: men camping, eating, fighting, ailing, longing for home. He mailed his sketches back to the magazine’s offices in the city, where engravers would quickly transform them into illustrations of the war for circulation among northern audiences. During and after the war, Homer also turned his sketches into finished paintings, like Rainy Day in Camp. In this (and other works), Homer captured some of the less romantic aspects of a soldier’s life: five soldiers, pelted by rain and surrounded by mud, crowded around a cookfire in muted misery. Behind them, a line of horses stretches to the horizon, a covered wagon is leaning in worrisome fashion, and a scattering of cross-like stands for tack at the far left reference make-shift camp graveyards. After all, though many men may have volunteered out of patriotic devotion, fighting in a war was work: marching and drilling, moving war matériel, building earthworks and bridges, digging latrines, and burying the dead. Only a fraction of a man’s time in the army involved shooting or being shot at. Though the risk of sudden and violent death was ever present, he was far more likely to die from disease than from an enemy’s bullet. His initial sketches were of the camp, commanders, and army of the famous Union officer, Major General George B. McClellan, at the banks of the Potomac River in October 1861. Although the drawings did not get much attention at the time, they mark Homer's expanding skills from illustrator to painter. As with his urban scenes, Homer illustrated women during wartime, and showed the effects of the war on the home front. The war work was dangerous and exhausting. Back at his studio, Homer would regain his strength and re-focus his artistic vision. He set to work on a series of war-related paintings based on his sketches, among them Sharpshooter on Picket Duty (1862), Home, Sweet Home (1863), and Prisoners from the Front (1866). He exhibited paintings of these subjects every year at the National Academy of Design from 1863 to 1866. Home, Sweet Home was shown at the National Academy to particular critical acclaim; it was quickly sold and the artist was consequently elected an Associate Academician, then a full Academician in 1865. During this time, he also continued to sell his illustrations to periodicals such as Frank Leslie's. After the American Civil War, Homer turned his attention primarily to scenes of childhood and young women, reflecting nostalgia for simpler times. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: Civil War, Winslow Homer, Artwork, Artist, Soldiers, Camp Life, Home Front
ISBN: 0810902257
[Book #91832]
Price: $85.00