Every Thursday, as part of my personal “enriched environment” initiative, I post a piece of art, usually from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which recently released online some 400,000 high-resolution images of its collection. All artwork will show a sun (or sunlight) somewhere.
I won’t name the piece or the artist, but instead invite you to study the art and post a comment addressing one or more of these questions:
- What is going on in this picture?
- What do you see that makes you say that?
- What more can you find?
If you have another idea, run with it.
Special Update! The New York Times website does this same exercise every Monday with a news photo that is uncaptioned and contains no text (click!). The Times asks viewers the same three questions:
- What is going on in this picture?
- What do you see that makes you say that?
- What more can you find?
However, at the end of the week, the Times posts the background information on the picture. So, I’ve decided to do the same. I’ll still post an unlabeled piece of art on Thursday. But return on Sunday (for the Sunny Sundays post!) and you’ll find an update on the artwork here.
Note: To embiggen the image, click on it!
Eagle Head, Manchester, Massachusetts (High Tide)
Artist: Winslow Homer (American, Boston, Massachusetts 1836–1910 Prouts Neck, Maine)
Date: 1870
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 26 x 38 in. (66 x 96.5 cm)
Classification: Paintings
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 767
Following his experience as an illustrator during the Civil War, Homer turned his attention to lighter scenes of contemporary life, often focusing on fashionable young women. This painting of three bathers on a Massachusetts beach was his most daring subject to date. Critics were less disturbed by its disquieting mood than by the fact that, as one observed, the figures were “exceedingly red-legged and ungainly.” As in much of Homer’s art, an air of mystery and melancholy imbues the scene, suggesting deeper meanings below the surface.
Hello Bruce, At last I am spending some time reading and clicking around your wonderfully updated – I like the latest banner on the home page – website.
So I see the painting is by Monet, if my eyes tell me true. I am drawn to the seated figure, looking back at her friend twisting out the water from her dress. I like the idea that she has no qualms about sitting on the sand dressed as she is. I love the quizzical, questioning expression on her face. What must it have been like to wear so very many clothes? They do look as if they are enjoying themselves though. Except maybe that dog – he looks like he is not ready to get wet from the splashing water out of the dress. Interesting how two of the women have some sort of cap on their heads so they are not wringing out their hair. Meanwhile, when I first glanced at the painting, I thought the central figure was wringing out her hair, then I noticed that it was her dress she was twisting. I wonder what these women would think if they were able to visit a beach of today and see how little clothing women are wearing! But why oh why do men and boys insist on wearing those goofy board shorts? It can’t be easy to swim in them, so baggy and so much material? The women of today wear less and less and the men seem to be so afraid to show anything. Ah well. Hope you have found time to get to your own beach, Bruce! Love to you.
Ach! With apologies to Monet! The painting is by Winslow Homer!!!! How funny. Well, Monet certainly _could_ have painted it but Homer makes more sense. Guess I need my eyes checked.
Hi Daniel – I’ll post the information about the picture on Sunday sometime. It’s great you got to visit the site! – Bruce
The three women all have their backs to each other. What does that mean???
Swimming in the nude. It’s much better.
First, the sun is off to the right. Anomaly.
Second, I agree with Nate that it’s strange that the three women have their backs to each other, although the woman sitting down is turning her head and looking at the woman wringing out her dress.
Third, not only did they go into the water wearing heavy layers of clothes, but they have shoes on, too. How sad that they cannot feel the sand between their toes.
Fourth, why is the dog so startled?
Fifth, I see two white birds, probably sea gulls, in the background.
Sixth, if you enlarge the picture you’ll see other humans walking on the beach in the distance.
Seventh, in the water on the far right is a line of white things skimming the surface – tiny birds? I don’t think so. Some kind of insect? Do groups of insects fly in straight lines?
Overall impression of this painting: the arrangement of the three women and the dog is ultimately startling, because it raises questions and doesn’t seem to make sense.
I notice the women’s shoes have no backs to them. They are slip ons, but they also have laces to tie them. This seems strange. Were they made intentionally for the beach?