Sunlight on the Coast
Winslow Homer1890
The Toledo Museum of Art
Toledo, United States
Winslow Homer skillfully conveys nature’s power with almost violent stabs and dabs of his brush representing waves crashing against rocks. Sunlight on the Coast—ironically titled, since the sun has struggled to break through the gloom of an approaching storm—was Homer’s first pure seascape in oils. From this point on he moved away from narrative subjects to primarily scenes of the sea in all its majestic force, painted outdoors.
In the late 1800s, critics cast Homer as the ideal American painter, a “rugged individualist.” His move in 1883 to Prout’s Neck, Maine, where he established a seaside studio, was seen as an admirable withdrawal from the noise and commotion of the city to devote himself instead to the solitary life of the artist. “The life that I have chosen gives me my full hours of enjoyment for the balance of my life,” Homer wrote. “The Sun will not rise, or set, without my notice and thanks.”
- Title: Sunlight on the Coast
- Creator: Winslow Homer
- Creator lifespan: 1836 - 1910
- Creator's nationality: American
- Creator's place of death: Maine, United States
- Creator's place of birth: Boston, United States
- Creator's gender: male
- Date created: 1890
- Physical Location: Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio
- Location created: North America, United States
- Physical Dimensions: Painting: 30 1/4 × 48 1/2 in. (76.8 × 123.2 cm) Frame: 46 × 64 1/2 × 5 1/4 in. (116.8 × 163.8 × 13.3 cm)
- Subject Keywords: seascape; ocean; rocks; shore; waves; evening; sunset; boat
- Type: Painting
- Rights: https://toledomuseum.org/collection/image-resources
- External Link: Toledo Museum of Art
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Art genre: Landscape
- Fun Fact: The image of the ocean crashing against the coast intrigued Winslow Homer from the time he moved to the rugged peninsula of Prout's Neck, Maine, in 1883. A few years earlier (1881-1883) Homer had lived in the English coastal fishing village of Cullercoats on the North Sea, painting the sea mostly as a backdrop for the people who lived there. Only in 1890, beginning with Sunlight on the Coast, did Homer shift away from essentially narrative subjects to focus on the pure seascape elements of rock, light, water, and sky. The subject of Sunlight on the Coast is the never-ending battle between the sea and the shore, captured under specific conditions of light and weather. The painting's simplified composition, strong linear rhythms, earth-toned harmonies, and broadly textured brushwork determine its particular mood. A heavy blue-green wave rolls in and breaks over a shelf of brown rocks, spewing foam and spray. Homer successfully conveyed the wave's heaving, weighty mass and the iridescence of the swirling countercurrent. The wave's bulk, its powerful sliding, rolling motion, and its suction force as it funnels in on itself represent nature's might. Homer's title for his painting seems curious. Sunlight barely pierces the darkness, although it transforms the backwash of one wave into a glittering surface and illuminates a portion of the sea and a steamship on the distant horizon. This diagonal recession in space from the dark lower left to the light upper right runs counter to the angle of the wave and conveys the vastness of the sea. As in the paintings that were to follow Sunlight on the Coast, Homer's depiction of the forceful interplay between the sea and the shore is an image of contemplation that manifests aspects of man's relationship with nature.
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