Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light (Art Institute of Chicago)
by Martha Tedeschi, Kristi Dahm
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Book Summary Information
Author: Kristi Dahm, Martha TedeschiContributor: Judith Walsh
Contributor: Karen Huang
Edition: Hardcover
Published: 2008-02-26
ISBN: 0300119453
Number of pages: 228
Publisher: Art Institute of Chicago
Book Reviews of Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light (Art Institute of Chicago)
Book Review: Marvelous book with beautiful color images and technical details
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an invaluable book on Winslow Homer's watercolors with superb color photographs and technical details.
TEDESCHI, MARTHA; DAHM, KRISTI; WALSH, JUDITH; and HUANG, KAREN.
Watercolors by Winslow Homer: The Color of Light
The Art Institute of Chicago, Yale University Press, New Haven and London2008
978-0-300-11945-9
228 pages, index of technical terms, extensive references and bibliography, copiously illustrated with excellent color plates.
This catalogue accompanied an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in spring 2008. Technical information about Winslow Homer's watercolor technique is woven throughout the entire text. Homer's career in watercolors is carefully traced beginning with his self-taught, trial-and-error early watercolors. He began using watercolor as an independent medium in 1873. His method was often to paint quickly in the open air or to develop a watercolor from a careful pencil study. He seems to have informed himself by reading treatises on the medium. Favoring papers of moderate texture, he opted for opaque watercolor at first but sometimes combined transparent washes and opaque passages. He usually began by laying out the central motif with graphite lines. Technical variety was established early and would endure throughout his career. Homer's "Bible" was Chevreul on Colors.
By the early 1870s Homer was an accomplished draftsman. To achieve brightness and opacity he used zinc white watercolor, mixing it with and layering it under transparent watercolor. By 1878 he carried out some works entirely in transparent watercolor. For "Weary" he selected an off-white, medium-thick sheet with a rough, twill texture and used a dry brush method for sunlight hitting the tree trunk. In the fall of 1880 he dedicated himself to painting in transparent watercolor and appropriated a new range of transparent pigments including three blues: Antwerp, indigo, and Prussian. A chart is provided of his pigments from 1878 to 1903.
Many of his watercolors were on Whatman paper, handmade from linen fibers and infused with gelatin size. This size sometimes attracted mold which appeared in scattered spots of foxing. The Whatman paper was bound in a solid block with a gumlike adhesive and gauze on four sides. His brown laid papers, containing red and blue fibers were made by the French manufacturer "Saint Mars." Among the remains of Homer's studio materials are two Winsor and Newton "Japanned tin boxes" containing moist watercolor cakes. They contained glycerin, a wetting agent that retains moisture and causes the immediate release of color when touched with a rough brush. Two of his watercolor brushes are pictured; they are made from sable bristles set into a swan quill that was stripped of its feathers.
Homer sometimes transferred designs using carbon paper. Examination under ultraviolet light reveals the artist's use of madder lake; in "Two Boys Watching Schooners" of 1880, the madder lake was used over the figures and rocks to convey the sun's warmth. He sometimes used blotting to create atmospheric textures or would wet, blot, and scrape areas. Scraped passages are recognized when viewed at an angle; the broken and disrupted paper fibers in these areas have a softer look than the uninterrupted surface. Homer sometimes used sandpaper to abrade both pigment and paper to reveal the white substrate below; this method created a speckled texture, taking away pigment only from the highest points of the rough paper while leaving it in the surrounding interstices. Occasionally, Homer abandoned his brushes and tools and manipulated watercolors directly with his fingers. Other techniques discussed include applying broad flat washes for sky and water, painting wet-on-wet to create atmospheric effects, spattering to produce the effect of salt and humidity hanging in the air, tamping the brush to construct thin wispy tops of pine trees, using a knife to create white highlights, and using a resist, possibly of white lead, a drying oil, and a resin, to block off areas. Alterations were sometimes made by scraping. Infrared images of the graphite underdrawings may reveal significant changes in composition. Homer sometimes cropped the works; the trimmed edges appear slightly uneven and lack the adhesive residue from the watercolor drawing block.
Homer would sometimes place tracing paper over a watercolor, outline the main elements with a soft graphite pencil, and place the tracing face down onto a copper plate to transfer the image for an etching. Some of the red lake pigments in Homer watercolors have faded. The original color may be preserved where it was covered by a window mat or frame rabbet edge.
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