Winslow Homer, Special Artist

Winslow Homer, Special Artist for Harper's Weekly

Self portrait of Winslow Homer at work sketching two very tall soldiers in Harper's Weekly, June 14, 1862, page 376.

Photo of a very clean-looking Winslow Homer, taken between campaigns.

Winslow Homer was born in Boston in 1836 to a family with a long line of New Englanders on both sides. First taught by his mother, Homer had established a career as a commercial illustrator by the time the Civil War began. Harper’s Weekly sent him to the front at the beginning of the war where he sketched scenes while with the Army of the Potomac. He began painting war scenes in oil based on his sketches. Beginning with this work and on to his death in 1910, Homer created prints and paintings that make him a preeminent figure in American art.

This post focuses on sketches known to have been done, or likely to have been done, during Homer's two wartime trips to the Petersburg front- in June 1864 and March 1865- and the paintings that resulted from the sketches. These paintings include two of Homer's most iconic works- Prisoners from the Front and Defiance.

"Prisoners from the Front," painting by Winslow Homer, 1866. Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Prisoners From the Front. 1866. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

According to the catalog entry, "The material that Homer collected as an artist-correspondent during the Civil War provided the subjects for his first oil paintings. In 1866, one year after the war ended and four years after he reputedly began to paint in oil, Homer completed this picture, a work that established his reputation. It represents an actual scene from the war in which a Union officer, Brigadier General Francis Channing Barlow (1834–1896) captured several Confederate officers on June 21, 1864. The background depicts the battlefield at Petersburg, Virginia. Infrared photography and numerous studies indicate that the painting underwent many changes in the course of completion."
http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/11133?ft=Winslow+Homer&pg=1&rpp=20&pos=1

Homer is known to have associated with Barlow earlier in the war and may have continued to do so during the Petersburg Campaign in 1864-1865. The only known documentation of his activities during this time comes from his art. http://www.civilwar.si.edu/homer_intro.html

Homer used sketches made in the field to compose Prisoners From the Front. The top inserts on the painting below are from a war-time sketchbook held at the National Gallery of Art and the two on the bottom are from another notebook held at the Cooper Hewitt Museum. The Cooper Hewitt sketches are on the two sides of a piece of paper: the side with the drawing of slashed trees is clearly labeled Petersburg. The other two drawings are dated 1864 so are likely to have been drawn at Petersburg. Barlow and the First Division of the Second Corps of the Army of the Potomac were in action against Confederate forces at the Jerusalem Plank Road on June 21, 1864, and Homer may have observed an exchange with prisoners. Nonetheless, the finished painting is compiled of faithful copies of sketches and portions of sketches with new elements added to complete the scene.

The drawings, however accurate and done on the spot, do not reflect the actual scene in that they lack one element- color. Homer's black line drawings were adequate for reporting as a special artist for Harper's Weekly, but color, or shades of color, added a whole new layer of emotional accuracy to the paintings. The landscape in Prisoners at the Front is sere and wintery, except for the one evergreen sprig in the foreground. Contemporary accounts describe a dry, dusty, relatively waterless landscape around Petersburg in June, 1864, but nonetheless, it was early summer and fields and woods should have been alive with growth. The siege was just beginning, and the impact of the armies would not have halted this natural process in so short a period of time. The only bright colors are the red trefoil on the Federal II Corps flag, the red insignia on the U.S. soldiers' caps, and the aforementioned evergreen needles.

Homer used at least four identified sketches to compose the elements in his famous painting "Prisoners from the Front."

Winslow Homer used these sketches when composing his painting "Prisoners from the Front"

A Confederate colonel was captured during the fight [Jerusalem Plank Road]. He was mounted on a superb gray horse which General Barlow afterwards purchased and rode in battle. The splendid animal became very fond of the General and would follow him around the camp begging for the lumps of sugar that the General would be pretty sure to have in his pocket with which to treat his equine friend.
St. Clair A. Mulholland, The Story of the 116th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, p.278.

"Prisoners of War, 1864" National Gallery of Art.

"Unknown Officer," Cooper Hewitt Museum.

The drawing above on the left from the National Gallery of Art is titled "Prisoners of War,1864." The soldier on the far left of the group is faithfully depicted in the painting "Prisoners From the Front," while the others were modified, perhaps based on other sketches. The drawing on the right is cataloged as an unknown officer at the Cooper Hewitt Museum, but it is almost certainly a sketch of Francis Channing Barlow. Compare this sketch with Barlow's photo below. His boyish looks were often commented upon, sometimes contrasted with his hard sense of discipline in the ranks.

LC 05951. "Maj. Gen. Francis Channing Barlow."

Officers and Horses at Rest, 1864. National Gallery of Art. The bottom grouping with the Second Corps flag at the right was used as background in the "Prisoners From the Front Painting.

Drawing, "Studies of a Battlefield with Tree Stumps and Blasted Tree Trunks, Petersburg, Virginia. 1864." Cooper Hewitt Museum. Details of the felled trees, known as slashing, and damaged trees on the horizon can be seen in the oil painting above. This drawing also seems to have been used in his 1864 painting Defiance, below.

"Line-ups and Trenches, 1864." National Gallery of Art. Second Corps flag can be seen on the right.

"Carrying the Wounded, March 1865." National Gallery of Art.

Trooper Meditating Beside a Grave, c. 1865, oil on canvas, 16 x 8 inches. Joslyn Museum, Omaha, Nebraska.

Young Soldier. Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution

Advance of the Skirmish Line. 1864. National Gallery of Art.

National Gallery of Art. In graphite across bottom: Grant and Lincoln at City Point - Va / from life - April 1865 / W Homer

This figure from the sketch titled "Prisoners from the Front", above, has been depicted with a rifle in the foreground of the painting "Defiance: Inviting a Shot Before Petersburg".

Homer probably did not visit the Confederate side of the lines, but he was on the Federal side of the field. Defiance draws heavily on the sketch titled "Studies of a Battlefield with Tree Stumps and Blasted Tree Trunks, Petersburg, Virginia. 1864" at the Cooper Hewitt Museum, reproduced above- even down to the bare branch in the forefront and the earthwork snaking towards the horizon. Homer was fascinated by the desolation wrought by the cutting of trees to clear fields of fire, provide obstacles, and use for construction of fortifications and camps. There is some green vegetal life in the hills to the left of the painting, and behind the line to the right, but the foreground, trailing into the distance, is dull, raw earth. During this time period, gravestones depicting slashed tree trunks, or broken tree trunks and branches, symbolized a life cut short. It seems likely that Homer's obsession with stumps, leafless branches, and standing trees blighted by artillery fire, along with the gray skies and desolate landscapes he painted at Petersburg, exemplifies the thousands of lives blighted and cut short by war.

Defiance: Inviting a shot Before Petersburg. Detroit Institute of Art. 1864.