Hello Luis,

I read previoius comments and viewed submitted art works of Winslow Homer; did some research and found a wounderful site of his works.

Was also impressed to learn this artist was self-motivated for "Homer did not receive formal art training. He began his art career as an apprentice for a commercial lithographer. In the late 1850's he began doing work for Harper's Weekly. His early work for Harper's was primarily to create line art drawings from photographs. At the time pictures were printed by "stamping" them from a large wood block."

Dad's Coming, 1873, oil on wood, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

Homer’s early works, while mainly set outdoors, are almost all figure paintings. This was a conspicuous departure from the type of pure landscape that dominated nineteenth-century American art. Homer spent the summer of 1873 in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where he painted this family of a fisherman awaiting his return. The exuberance suggested by the title—first given when an engraving of the painting was published in Harper's Weekly in 1873—is tempered by the meditative air of the still, silhouetted figures. The mother faces away from the sea, while the young boy scans a horizon that yields no sign of an approaching boat. Instead of depicting a celebratory narrative of homecoming, Homer captures the more ambiguous moment of watching and waiting. He would have been acutely aware of this aspect of the lives of fishermen's families, for Gloucester experienced a significant loss of life due to tragedies at sea during his stay.

Dear Jan,

That was a wonderful contribution. What looks incredible to me is Winslow Homer already was such a great, accomplished artist by 1873 to produce beauty in a superlative degree. But then I only have to remember that he had all the innate talent of a genius from his childhood, that his mother was an endowed artist herself who greatly influenced and supported him, and that he already was an outstanding engraver as a youth, to realize that he was no beginner at all by then.

This makes me think of Roger's question: "How little we know?" and feel like answering: "Very little indeed", as I did not know any of this at the time he created this thread.

Dad's Coming, 1873, oil on wood, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

Among the outstanding qualities of this painting are the perfect composition which includes an also perfect balance of its elements, the superb drawing and, of course, the absolute mastery of color, of a unique beauty. I think the oil medium may favor this latter quality. I am not very sure, however, whether I am qualified to say that I seem to perceive that for all his claiming that an artist must "Look at nature, work independently, and solve his own problems," Winslow Homer appears to have been somewhat influenced by the European art of this time, concretely by that of the stablished French Barbizon school of Jean-Francois Millet, which may be the reason why the figures in this painting, however evocative, at the same time are heavily protagonic (and therefore encapsulated). Maybe Roger will agree with me on this.

And curiously enough, it was in the same year in which he produced this work, 1873, that he started painting with watercolors on a regular basis. "From the beginning, his technique was natural, fluid and confident, demonstrating his innate talent for a difficult medium. His impact would be revolutionary." (Wikipedia.)  Need I say more? I believe that only then did Winslow Homer finally got rid of all external influences and became the completely original great artist that he would be remembered for after his death.

Best Wishes,

Luis Miguel Goitizolo

Luis,

I came across your post:

Can you believe that at certain moments in the day I have been feeling intensely happy? It's true, especially when walking with my dogs in the early morning and coming back home in the late afternoon, I have been feeling like singing aloud while rythmically marching with them almost at a military pace.

So there has not been any new miracle yet, but anyway, I am so happy. I believe it is writing my article that has been putting me in this mood.

These thoughts are wonderful! What I've learned is that happiness is not necessarily dependent upon our situations.

Shuswap Sunset© Terry Gorley

Jan,

Thank you for bringing such a beautiful picture to us.

I was hugely impressed with this oil.

Luis, I agree every word.

The composition is superb, I love the face of the woman partty obscurred by the child. Very natural.

The colours, the content and execution all combine to give me huge pleasure.

Thank you.

Roger

Dear Terry,

Thank you very much for your kind works, you are so sweet. On my part, I too have enjoyed reading your posts both at Sara's Art Gallery and Branka's Omniform forum very recently and of course, here at this forum, though not so recently. I even remember reading in one of Nick Grimshawe's Beautiful Summer Mornings one of your beautiful poems, "Solitude", and most especially your "Life is a Journey", a wonderful contribution. In fact, I was so impressed by both that I showed them at Jill's "Mountain" forum.

Above all, I enjoy reading posts that spiritually enrich me or that at least make me think . One of the wonderful things that I find with this kind of posts is, they seem to coincide precisely with my present circumstances, as if they were somehow intended to reach to me exactly at this time. I am no longer amazed by it, I have talked about this feeling of mine several times with Roger and Branka and also with Kathleen. I call it "coincidences"... though I know they are no mere coincidences. Your message in "Life is a Journey" was just like that. But at the same time it was more, as it made me think of how only now have I begun to learn what my real purpose in life is. A knowledge that actually was always there, but only in the theory; a knowledge that little by little is being revealed by those messages that seem to be mysteriously addressed to me.

For example, the Spirit is so powerful that whenever we touch spiritual matters, not only we can feel that we are enriching our selves by just talking about them, but we also spiritually enjoy the act itself of talking. It is as if a delicious spiritual food was at that moment both surrounding us like a cloud and penetrating us to the core, as if the mere act of talking about spiritual things had an immediate reward in the blissful feeling that it brings to us (apart, of course, from any spiritual future reward that we may derive from cultivating such talks). Also, we may feel elevated for some time after that, even days, and we may certainly expect to get the highest reward in our next life, as that is our promise and our hope. Yet all this I learned about thirty years ago, and I even used to have this kind of experience from the time I started practicing meditation. But only now am I beginning to fully enjoy it throughout my daily activities. I believe this new enhanced experience has been triggered by both enjoying spiritual, transcendental talks with whoever that happened to be in contact with me at any time, even online talks, and by constantly reading about spiritual and trascendental matters. Your contribution at Nick's "Beautiful Summer Mornings" is an example of this. Most especially, I am trying to do only what I most love to do: writing (mainly about those matters), getting involved in artistic and cultural activities, etc.

Of course my daily walks with my dogs, above all those in the mornings, strongly collaborate with this. Actually, they are essential not so much on the physical as on the spiritual level.

Thanks again,

Luis Miguel Goitizolo