Winslow Homer was an American landscape painter and printmaker, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in American art.
Largely self-taught, Homer began his career working as a commercial illustrator. He subsequently took up oil painting and produced major studio works characterized by the weight and density he exploited from the medium. He also worked extensively in watercolor, creating a fluid and prolific oeuvre, primarily chronicling his working vacations.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1836, Homer was the second of three sons of Charles Savage Homer and Henrietta Benson Homer, both from long lines of New Englanders. His mother was a gifted amateur watercolorist and Homer's first teacher. She and her son had a close relationship throughout their lives. Homer took on many of her traits, including her quiet, strong-willed, terse, sociable nature; her dry sense of humor; and her artistic talent. Homer had a happy childhood, growing up mostly in then-rural Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was an average student, but his art talent was evident in his early years.
Homer's father was a volatile, restless businessman who was always looking to "make a killing". When Homer was thirteen, Charles gave up the hardware store business to seek a fortune in the California gold rush. When that failed, Charles left his family and went to Europe to raise capital for other get-rich-quick schemes that did not pay off.
After Homer's high school graduation, his father saw a newspaper advertisement and arranged for an apprenticeship. Homer's apprenticeship at the age of 19 to J. H. Bufford, a Boston commercial lithographer, was a formative but "treadmill experience". He worked repetitively on sheet music covers and other commercial work for two years. By 1857, his freelance career was underway after he turned down an offer to join the staff of Harper's Weekly. "From the time I took my nose off that lithographic stone," Homer later stated, "I have had no master, and never shall have any."
Homer's career as an illustrator lasted nearly twenty years. He contributed illustrations of Boston life and rural New England life to magazines such as Ballou's Pictorial and Harper's Weekly at a time when the market for illustrations was growing rapidly and fads and fashions were changing quickly. His early works, mostly commercial wood engravings of urban and country social scenes, are characterized by clean outlines, simplified forms, dramatic contrast of light and dark, and lively figure groupings—qualities that remained important throughout his career. His quick success was mostly due to this strong understanding of graphic design and also to the adaptability of his designs to wood engraving.
Before moving to New York in 1859, Homer lived in Belmont, Massachusetts with his family. His uncle's Belmont mansion, the 1853 Homer House, was the inspiration for a number of his early illustrations and paintings, including several of his 1860s croquet pictures. The Homer House, owned by the Belmont Woman's Club, is open for public tours.
In 1859, he opened a studio in the Tenth Street Studio Building in New York City, the artistic and publishing capital of the United States. Until 1863, he attended classes at the National Academy of Design, and studied briefly with Frédéric Rondel, who taught him the basics of painting. In only about a year of self-training, Homer was producing excellent oil work. His mother tried to raise family funds to send him to Europe for further study but instead Harper's sent Homer to the front lines of the American Civil War (1861–1865), where he sketched battle scenes and camp life, the quiet moments as well as the chaotic ones. His initial sketches were of the camp, commanders, and army of the famous Union officer, Major General George B. McClellan, at the banks of the Potomac River in October 1861.
Although the drawings did not get much attention at the time, they mark Homer's expanding skills from illustrator to painter. Like with his urban scenes, Homer also illustrated women during wartime, and showed the effects of the war on the home front. The war work was dangerous and exhausting. Back at his studio, Homer would regain his strength and re-focus his artistic vision. He set to work on a series of war-related paintings based on his sketches, among them Sharpshooter on Picket Duty (1862), Home, Sweet Home (1863), and Prisoners from the Front (1866). He exhibited paintings of these subjects every year at the National Academy of Design from 1863 to 1866. Home, Sweet Home was shown at the National Academy to particular critical acclaim; it was quickly sold and the artist was consequently elected an Associate Academician, then a full Academician in 1865. During this time, he also continued to sell his illustrations to periodicals such as Our Young Folks and Frank Leslie's Chimney Corner.
After the war, Homer turned his attention primarily to scenes of childhood and young women, reflecting nostalgia for simpler times, both his own and the nation as a whole.
Homer was also interested in postwar subject matter that conveyed the silent tension between two communities seeking to understand their future. His oil painting A Visit from the Old Mistress (1876) shows an encounter between a group of four freed slaves and their former mistress. The formal equivalence between the standing figures suggests the balance that the nation hoped to find in the difficult years of Reconstruction. Homer composed this painting from sketches he had made while traveling through Virginia.
Near the beginning of his painting career, the 27-year-old Homer demonstrated a maturity of feeling, depth of perception, and mastery of technique which was immediately recognized. His realism was objective, true to nature, and emotionally controlled. One critic wrote, "Winslow Homer is one of those few young artists who make a decided impression of their power with their very first contributions to the Academy ... He at this moment wields a better pencil, models better, colors better, than many whom, were it not improper, we could mention as regular contributors to the Academy." And of Home, Sweet Home specifically, "There is no clap-trap about it. The delicacy and strength of emotion which reign throughout this little picture are not surpassed in the whole exhibition." "It is a work of real feeling, soldiers in camp listening to the evening band, and thinking of the wives and darlings far away. There is no strained effect in it, no sentimentality, but a hearty, homely actuality, broadly, freely, and simply worked out."
Before exhibiting at the National Academy of Design, Homer finally traveled to Paris, France, in 1867 where he remained for a year. His most praised early painting, Prisoners from the Front, was on exhibit at the Exposition Universelle in Paris at the same time. He did not study formally but he practiced landscape painting while continuing to work for Harper's, depicting scenes of Parisian life.
Homer painted approximately one dozen small paintings during the stay. Although he arrived in France at a time of new fashions in art, Homer's main subject for his paintings was peasant life, showing more of an alignment with the established French Barbizon school and the artist Millet than with newer artists Manet and Courbet. Though his interest in depicting natural light parallels that of the early impressionists, there is no evidence of direct influence as he was already a plein-air painter in America and had already evolved a personal style which was much closer to Manet than Monet. Unfortunately, Homer was very private about his personal life and his methods (even denying his first biographer any personal information or commentary), but his stance was clearly one of independence of style and a devotion to American subjects. As his fellow artist Eugene Benson wrote, Homer believed that artists "should never look at pictures" but should "stutter in a language of their own."
Throughout the 1870s, Homer continued painting mostly rural or idyllic scenes of farm life, children playing, and young adults courting, including Country School (1871) and The Morning Bell (1872). In 1875, Homer quit working as a commercial illustrator and vowed to survive on his paintings and watercolors alone. Despite his excellent critical reputation, his finances continued to remain precarious. His popular 1872 painting Snap the Whip was exhibited at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as was one of his finest and most famous paintings Breezing Up (1876).
In 1877, Homer exhibited for the first time at the Boston Art Club with the oil painting, An Afternoon Sun, (owned by the Artist). From 1877 through 1909, Homer exhibited often at the Boston Art Club. Works on paper, both drawings and watercolors, were frequently exhibited by Homer beginning in 1882. A most unusual sculpture by the Artist, Hunter with Dog – Northwoods, was exhibited in 1902. By that year, Homer had switched his primary Gallery from the Boston-based Doll and Richards to the New York City based Knoedler & Co.
Homer became a member of The Tile Club, a group of artists and writers who met frequently to exchange ideas and organize outings for painting, as well as foster the creation of decorative tiles. For a short time, he designed tiles for fireplaces.
Homer started painting with watercolors on a regular basis in 1873 during a summer stay in Gloucester, Massachusetts. From the beginning, his technique was natural, fluid and confident, demonstrating his innate talent for a difficult medium. His impact would be revolutionary. Here, again, the critics were puzzled at first, "A child with an ink bottle could not have done worse." Another critic said that Homer "made a sudden and desperate plunge into water color painting". But his watercolors proved popular and enduring, and sold more readily, improving his financial condition considerably. They varied from highly detailed (Blackboard – 1877) to broadly impressionistic (Schooner at Sunset – 1880). Some watercolors were made as preparatory sketches for oil paintings (as for "Breezing Up") and some as finished works in themselves. Thereafter, he seldom traveled without paper, brushes and water based paints.
As a result of disappointments with women or from some other emotional turmoil, Homer became reclusive in the late 1870s, no longer enjoying urban social life and living instead in Gloucester. For a while, he even lived in secluded Eastern Point Lighthouse (with the keeper's family). In re-establishing his love of the sea, Homer found a rich source of themes while closely observing the fishermen, the sea, and the marine weather. After 1880, he rarely featured genteel women at leisure, focusing instead on working women.
Homer spent two years (1881–1882) in the English coastal village of Cullercoats, Northumberland. Many of the paintings at Cullercoats took as their subjects working men and women and their daily heroism, imbued with a solidity and sobriety which was new to Homer's art, presaging the direction of his future work. He wrote, "The women are the working bees. Stout hardy creatures." His works from this period are almost exclusively watercolors. His palette became constrained and sober; his paintings larger, more ambitious, and more deliberately conceived and executed. His subjects more universal and less nationalistic, more heroic by virtue of his unsentimental rendering. Although he moved away from the spontaneity and bright innocence of the American paintings of the 1860s and 1870s, Homer found a new style and vision which carried his talent into new realms.
Back in the U.S. in November 1882, Homer showed his English watercolors in New York. Critics noticed the change in style at once, "He is a very different Homer from the one we knew in days gone by", now his pictures "touch a far higher plane ... They are works of High Art." Homer's women were no longer "dolls who flaunt their millinery" but "sturdy, fearless, fit wives and mothers of men" who are fully capable of enduring the forces and vagaries of nature alongside their men.
In 1883, Homer moved to Prouts Neck, Maine (in Scarborough), and lived at his family's estate in the remodeled carriage house seventy-five feet from the ocean. During the rest of the mid-1880s, Homer painted his monumental sea scenes. In Undertow (1886), depicting the dramatic rescue of two female bathers by two male lifeguards, Homer's figures "have the weight and authority of classical figures". In Eight Bells (1886), two sailors carefully take their bearings on deck, calmly appraising their position and by extension, their relationship with the sea; they are confident in their seamanship but respectful of the forces before them. Other notable paintings among these dramatic struggle-with-nature images are Banks Fisherman, The Gulf Stream, Rum Cay, Mending the Nets, and Searchlight on Harbor Entrance, Santiago de Cuba. Some of these he repeated as etchings.
At fifty years of age, Homer had become a "Yankee Robinson Crusoe, cloistered on his art island" and "a hermit with a brush". These paintings established Homer, as the New York Evening Post wrote, "in a place by himself as the most original and one of the strongest of American painters." But despite his critical recognition, Homer's work never achieved the popularity of traditional Salon pictures or of the flattering portraits by John Singer Sargent. Many of the sea pictures took years to sell and Undertow only earned him $400.
In these years, Homer received emotional sustenance primarily from his mother, brother Charles, and sister-in-law Martha ("Mattie"). After his mother's death, Homer became a "parent" for his aging but domineering father and Mattie became his closest female intimate. In the winters of 1884–5, Homer ventured to warmer locations in Florida, Cuba, and the Bahamas and did a series of watercolors as part of a commission for Century Magazine. He replaced the turbulent green storm-tossed sea of Prouts Neck with the sparkling blue skies of the Caribbean and the hardy New Englanders with Black natives, further expanding his watercolor technique, subject matter, and palette. During this trip he painted Children Under a Palm Tree for Lady Blake, the Governor's wife. His tropical stays inspired and refreshed him in much the same way as Paul Gauguin's trips to Tahiti.
A Garden in Nassau (1885) is one of the best examples of these watercolors. Once again, his freshness and originality were praised by critics but proved too advanced for the traditional art buyers and he "looked in vain for profits". Homer lived frugally, however, and fortunately, his affluent brother Charles provided financial help when needed.
Homer frequently visited Key West, Florida between 1888 and 1903. Some of his best-known works, A Norther, Key West, The Gulf Stream, Taking on Wet Provisions, and Palms in the Storm, are said to have been produced there.
Homer found inspiration in summer trips to the North Woods Club, near the hamlet of Minerva, New York, in the Adirondack Mountains. It was on these fishing vacations that he experimented with the watercolor medium, producing works of the utmost vigor and subtlety, hymns to solitude, nature, and to outdoor life. Homer doesn't shrink from the savagery of blood sports nor the struggle for survival. The color effects are boldly and facilely applied. In terms of quality and invention, Homer's achievements as a watercolorist are unparalleled: "Homer had used his singular vision and manner of painting to create a body of work that has not been matched."
In 1893, Homer painted one of his most famous "Darwinian" works, The Fox Hunt, which depicts a flock of starving crows descending on a fox slowed by deep snow. This was Homer's largest painting, and it was immediately purchased by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, his first painting in a major American museum collection. In Huntsman and Dogs (1891), a lone, impassive hunter, with his yelping dogs at his side, heads home after a hunt with deer skins slung over his right shoulder. Another late work, The Gulf Stream (1899), shows a black sailor adrift in a damaged boat, surrounded by sharks and an impending maelstrom.
By 1900, Homer finally reached financial stability, as his paintings fetched good prices from museums and he began to receive rents from real estate properties. He also became free of the responsibilities of caring for his father, who had died two years earlier. Homer continued producing excellent watercolors, mostly on trips to Canada and the Caribbean. Other late works include sporting scenes such as Right and Left, as well as seascapes absent of human figures, mostly of waves crashing against rocks in varying light. His late seascapes are especially valued for their dramatic and forceful expression of nature's powers, and for their beauty and intensity.
In his last decade, he at times followed the advice he had given a student artist in 1907: "Leave rocks for your old age—they're easy."
Homer died in 1910 at the age of 74 in his Prouts Neck studio and was interred in the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His painting, Shooting the Rapids, Saguenay River, remains unfinished.
His Prouts Neck studio, a National Historic Landmark, is now owned by the Portland Museum of Art, which offers tours.
Winslow Homer alikuwa mchoraji wa mandhari na mchoraji wa uchoraji wa Marekani, anayejulikana zaidi kwa mada zake za baharini. Anajulikana kama mchoraji maarufu wa karne ya 19 na mtu mashuhuri katika sanaa ya Amerika. Kwa kiasi kikubwa alijifunza mwenyewe, Homer alianza kazi yake akifanya kazi kama mchoraji picha wa kibiashara. Baadaye alichukua uchoraji wa mafuta na kutengeneza kazi kubwa za studio zinazojulikana kwa uzito na wiani aliotumia kutoka kwa kati. Pia alifanya kazi kwa wingi katika rangi ya maji, kuunda kazi ya mtiririko na ya uzalishaji, hasa chronicling likizo yake ya kazi. Homer alizaliwa huko Boston, Massachusetts, Marekani, mwaka 1836, na alikuwa wa pili kati ya wana watatu wa Charles Savage Homer na Henrietta Benson Homer, wote wawili kutoka New England. Mama yake alikuwa mchoraji wa rangi za maji mwenye kipawa na mwalimu wa kwanza wa Homer. Yeye na mwana wake walikuwa na uhusiano wa karibu maishani mwao wote. Homer alichukua sifa zake nyingi, kutia ndani tabia yake ya utulivu, yenye nguvu ya mapenzi, ya kifupi, ya ushirika; hisia yake ya ucheshi kavu; na kipawa chake cha kisanii. Homer alikuwa na utoto wenye furaha, akikua hasa katika kijiji cha Cambridge, Massachusetts, kilichokuwa kijijini wakati huo. Alikuwa mwanafunzi wa kawaida, lakini kipawa chake cha sanaa kilionekana katika miaka yake ya mapema. Baba ya Homer alikuwa mfanyabiashara asiye na utulivu na asiye na utulivu ambaye sikuzote alitaka "kufanya uuaji". Homer alipokuwa na umri wa miaka kumi na mitatu, Charles aliacha biashara ya duka la vifaa vya ujenzi ili kutafuta utajiri katika msukosuko wa dhahabu wa California. Baada ya hapo, Charles aliacha familia yake na kwenda Ulaya ili kupata fedha kwa ajili ya mipango mingine ya kutajiri haraka ambayo haikufaulu. Baada ya Homer kuhitimu shule ya sekondari, baba yake aliona tangazo la gazeti na kupanga kazi ya ufundi. Homer alipokuwa na umri wa miaka 19 alipata mafunzo kutoka kwa J. H. Buford, mchoraji wa maandishi wa biashara wa Boston, na alisoma katika chuo cha chuo kikuu cha New York. Alifanya kazi mara kwa mara kwenye vifuniko vya muziki wa karatasi na kazi nyingine za kibiashara kwa miaka miwili. Kufikia mwaka wa 1857, kazi yake ya kujitegemea ilikuwa ikiendelea baada ya kukataa ofa ya kujiunga na wafanyakazi wa Harper's Weekly. "Kuanzia wakati nilipochukua pua yangu kutoka kwenye jiwe hilo la uchoraji", Homer akasema baadaye, "sijawahi kuwa na bwana, na sitakuwa na bwana kamwe". Kazi ya Homer akiwa mchoraji picha ilidumu kwa karibu miaka ishirini. Alichangia picha za maisha ya Boston na maisha ya vijijini ya New England kwa magazeti kama vile Ballou's Pictorial na Harper's Weekly wakati soko la picha lilipokuwa likikua haraka na mitindo na mitindo ilibadilika haraka. Kazi zake za mapema, hasa uchongaji wa mbao wa kibiashara wa mandhari za kijamii za mijini na vijijini, zina sifa ya mipaka safi, fomu zilizo rahisi, tofauti kubwa ya mwanga na giza, na makundi ya takwimu zenye nguvu - sifa ambazo zilibaki muhimu katika kazi yake yote. Mafanikio yake ya haraka yalikuwa hasa kutokana na uelewa huu mkubwa wa kubuni graphic na pia kwa adaptability ya miundo yake kwa engraving mbao. Kabla ya kuhamia New York mwaka wa 1859, Homer aliishi Belmont, Massachusetts pamoja na familia yake. Nyumba ya Homer ya Belmont, ya mjomba wake, iliongoza kwenye michoro yake kadhaa ya mapema, ikiwa ni pamoja na picha zake kadhaa za croquet za miaka ya 1860. Nyumba ya Homer, inayomilikiwa na Klabu ya Wanawake ya Belmont, imefunguliwa kwa ziara za umma. Katika mwaka wa 1859, alianzisha studio yake katika Jengo la Studio la Barabara ya Kumi huko New York City, mji mkuu wa sanaa na uchapishaji wa Marekani. Kufikia mwaka 1863 alihudhuria madarasa katika Chuo cha Taifa cha Ubunifu, na alisomea kwa muda mfupi na Frédéric Rondel, ambaye alimfundisha misingi ya uchoraji. Baada ya kujitunza kwa mwaka mmoja tu, Homer alikuwa akifanya kazi nzuri sana ya kuchora mafuta. Mama yake alijaribu kukusanya fedha za familia ili kumpeleka Ulaya kwa ajili ya masomo zaidi, lakini badala yake Harper's alimtuma Homer kwenye mstari wa mbele wa Vita vya wenyewe kwa wenyewe vya Marekani (1861-1865) ambapo alichora mandhari za vita na maisha ya kambi, wakati wa utulivu na wakati wa machafuko. "Mchoro wa kwanza wa ""Kikosi cha Jeshi"" ulionyesha kambi, maofisa, na jeshi la Mkuu wa Jeshi la Umoja, Jenerali George B. McClellan, kwenye ukingo wa Mto Potomac mnamo Oktoba 1861." Ingawa michoro hiyo haikupendezwa sana wakati huo, inaonyesha kwamba Homer alikuwa akiongeza ustadi wake kutoka kuwa mchoraji hadi kuwa mchoraji. Kama ilivyo na mandhari zake za mijini, Homer pia alielezea wanawake wakati wa vita, na alionyesha athari za vita kwenye mstari wa nyumbani. Kazi ya vita ilikuwa hatari na yenye kuchosha. Aliporudi kwenye studio yake, Homer angepata tena nguvu zake na kukazia fikira tena maono yake ya kisanii. Alianza kufanya kazi kwenye mfululizo wa michoro ya vita kulingana na michoro yake, kati yao Sharpshooter on Picket Duty (1862), Home Sweet Home (1863), na Prisoners from the Front (1866). Alionyesha michoro yake kila mwaka katika Chuo cha Taifa cha Ubunifu kutoka 1863 hadi 1866. "Kazi ya nyumbani, Sweet Home, ilionyeshwa katika Chuo cha Taifa kwa sifa maalum ya wakosoaji; iliuzwa haraka na msanii huyo alichaguliwa kuwa Mshirika wa Chuo, kisha Mshirika kamili wa Chuo mnamo 1865.""" Wakati huu, pia aliendelea kuuza michoro yake kwa magazeti kama vile Our Young Folks na Frank Leslie's Chimney Corner. Baada ya vita, Homer aligeuza umakini wake hasa kwa mandhari ya utoto na wanawake wachanga, kuonyesha nostalgia kwa nyakati rahisi, wote wake mwenyewe na taifa kwa ujumla. Homer pia alipendezwa na habari za baada ya vita ambazo zilionyesha mkazo wa kimya kati ya jamii mbili zilizotafuta kuelewa wakati wao ujao. Mchoro wake wa mafuta A Visit from the Old Mistress (1876) unaonyesha mkutano kati ya kikundi cha watumwa wanne waliowekwa huru na bibi yao wa zamani. Ulinganifu rasmi kati ya takwimu za kusimama unaonyesha usawa ambao taifa lilitumaini kupata katika miaka ngumu ya Ujenzi. Homer aliandika mchoro huo kutokana na michoro aliyochora alipokuwa akisafiri kupitia Virginia. Katika mwanzo wa kazi yake ya uchoraji, Homer mwenye umri wa miaka 27 alionyesha ukomavu wa hisia, kina cha utambuzi, na ustadi wa mbinu ambayo ilitambuliwa mara moja. Uhalisi wake ulikuwa wa kimakusudi, wa kiasili, na uliodhibitiwa kihisia-moyo. "Mchambuzi mmoja aliandika, ""Winslow Homer ni mmoja wa wasanii wachache vijana ambao hufanya hisia ya nguvu zao na michango yao ya kwanza kwa Academy." "Huyu sasa ana kalamu bora, ana mifano bora, rangi bora kuliko wengi ambao, ikiwa haingekuwa isiyofaa, tunaweza kutaja kama wafadhili wa kawaida wa Chuo.""" Na ya Nyumbani, Nyumbani tamu hasa, "Hakuna mtego wa kupiga makofi kuhusu hilo. "Uwezo wa hisia na upole ambao unatawala katika picha hii ndogo hauwezi kuzidiwa katika maonyesho yote.""" "Ni kazi ya hisia halisi, askari katika kambi kusikiliza bendi ya jioni, na kufikiri ya wake na darlings mbali. """ Hakuna athari ya kukandamiza ndani yake, hakuna hisia, bali ni ukweli wa moyo, wa nyumbani, kwa ujumla, kwa uhuru, na kwa urahisi." Baada ya kuanzisha maonyesho yake katika Chuo cha Taifa cha Design, Homer hatimaye alisafiri kwenda Paris, Ufaransa, mwaka 1867 ambapo alikaa kwa mwaka mmoja. Picha yake ya mapema iliyojulikana zaidi, Prisoners from the Front, ilionyeshwa katika Maonyesho ya Ulimwengu huko Paris wakati huohuo. Alianza kazi yake ya uchoraji akiwa mchoraji wa mandhari na akaendelea kufanya kazi kwa Harper's, akionyesha mandhari ya maisha ya Paris. Homer alichora karibu michoro midogo kumi na mbili wakati wa kukaa huko. Ingawa Homer aliwasili Ufaransa wakati wa mitindo mpya ya sanaa, mada kuu ya michoro yake ilikuwa maisha ya wakulima, akionyesha zaidi ya usawa na shule ya Barbizon ya Ufaransa na mchoraji Millet kuliko na wasanii wapya Manet na Courbet. Ingawa maslahi yake katika kuelezea mwanga wa asili ni sawa na ya impressionists mapema, hakuna ushahidi wa ushawishi wa moja kwa moja kama yeye alikuwa tayari mchoraji plein-air katika Amerika na alikuwa tayari maendeleo ya mtindo binafsi ambayo ilikuwa karibu sana na Manet kuliko Monet. Kwa bahati mbaya, Homer alikuwa binafsi sana kuhusu maisha yake binafsi na mbinu zake (hata kukataa mwandishi wake wa kwanza habari yoyote ya kibinafsi au maoni), lakini msimamo wake ulikuwa wazi moja ya uhuru wa mtindo na kujitolea kwa mada ya Marekani. Kama alivyoandika msanii mwenzake Eugene Benson, Homer aliamini kwamba wasanii "haipaswi kamwe kutazama picha" bali wanapaswa "kusema kwa lugha yao wenyewe". Katika miaka ya 1870, Homer aliendelea kuchora mandhari ya mashambani au ya utulivu ya maisha ya shamba, watoto wakicheza, na vijana wakicheza, ikiwa ni pamoja na Shule ya Nchi (1871) na The Morning Bell (1872). Katika 1875 Homer aliacha kazi yake kama mchoraji wa picha za kibiashara na akaapa kuishi kwa michoro yake na rangi za maji tu. Licha ya sifa yake nzuri ya ukosoaji, fedha zake ziliendelea kubaki zisizo salama. "Kama picha ya kwanza ya ""Snap the Whip"" iliyochorwa mwaka 1876 katika Maonyesho ya Centennial huko Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, ilichorwa na mchoraji wa kwanza wa ""Breeze Up.""" "Mwaka 1877 Homer aliweka picha yake ya kwanza kwenye maonyesho ya Boston Art Club, ""An Afternoon Sun"" (An Afternoon Sun) na ""The Art Club.""" Kuanzia mwaka wa 1877 hadi mwaka wa 1909, Homer aliwakilisha mara nyingi katika Klabu ya Sanaa ya Boston. Kazi zake za kuchora na kuchora rangi za maji zilionyeshwa mara nyingi na Homer kuanzia 1882. "Mfano wa mchoro wa ""Hunter with Dog"" wa Northwoods ulionyeshwa mwaka 1902." Homer alikuwa amehamia kwenye nyumba ya sanaa ya New York City, Knoedler & Co. na baadaye alijiunga na Tile Club, kikundi cha wasanii na waandishi ambao walikutana mara kwa mara kubadilishana mawazo na kuandaa matembezi ya uchoraji. Kwa muda mfupi, alibuni vigae vya moto. Homer alianza kuchora kwa rangi ya maji mwaka 1873 wakati wa likizo yake huko Gloucester, Massachusetts. Tangu mwanzo, mbinu yake ilikuwa ya asili, mtiririko na kujiamini, kuonyesha vipaji yake ya asili kwa ajili ya kati ngumu. Athari yake ingekuwa ya mapinduzi. Hapa tena, wakosoaji walishangaa mwanzoni, "Mtoto aliye na chupa ya wino hangeweza kufanya mabaya zaidi". Mchambuzi mwingine alisema kwamba Homer "alianza kuchora rangi za maji ghafula na kwa kukata tamaa". Lakini rangi zake za maji zilithibitika kuwa maarufu na zenye kudumu, na ziliuzwa kwa urahisi zaidi, zikiboresha sana hali yake ya kifedha. Zilichanganyika kutoka kwa maelezo ya kina sana (Blackboard <unk> 1877) hadi kwa maoni ya jumla (Schooner at Sunset <unk> 1880). Baadhi ya rangi za maji zilifanywa kama michoro ya maandalizi kwa ajili ya michoro ya mafuta (kama kwa "Breezing Up") na baadhi kama kazi kumaliza wenyewe. Baada ya hapo, mara chache alisafiri bila karatasi, brashi, na rangi za maji. Kama matokeo ya kukata tamaa na wanawake au kutokana na msukosuko mwingine wa kihisia, Homer akawa mnyenyekevu mwishoni mwa miaka ya 1870, hakupendezwa tena na maisha ya kijamii ya mijini na kuishi badala yake huko Gloucester. Kwa muda fulani, hata aliishi katika mnara wa taa wa Eastern Point (pamoja na familia ya mlinzi). Alipokuwa akirudisha upendo wake kwa bahari, Homer alipata vyeo vingi vya kuigiza huku akiwatazama kwa makini wavuvi, bahari, na hali ya hewa ya baharini. Baada ya 1880, mara chache alionekana wanawake wa hali ya juu katika burudani, akizingatia badala yake wanawake wanaofanya kazi. Homer alitumia miaka miwili (1881-1882) katika kijiji cha Cullercoats, Northumberland, Uingereza. Picha nyingi zilizochorwa huko Cullercoats zilikuwa na wanaume na wanawake wa kazi na ushujaa wao wa kila siku, na zilikuwa na uthabiti na uthabiti ambao ulikuwa mpya kwa sanaa ya Homer, ikionyesha mwelekeo wa kazi yake ya baadaye. "Amesema, ""Wanawake ni nyuki wa kazi.""" Viumbe wenye nguvu na wenye nguvu". Kazi zake za kipindi hicho ni za rangi za maji tu. Palette yake ikawa ndogo na ya kiasi; michoro yake ilikuwa kubwa zaidi, yenye tamaa zaidi, na iliyochukuliwa na kutekelezwa kwa makusudi zaidi. Watu wake ni wa ulimwengu wote mzima na hawana ubaguzi wa kitaifa, wao ni mashujaa zaidi kwa sababu ya jinsi anavyoeleza mambo bila hisia-moyo. Ingawa aliondoka kwenye uwazi na uwazi wa uchoraji wa Amerika wa miaka ya 1860 na 1870, Homer alipata mtindo mpya na maono ambayo yalichukua talanta yake katika maeneo mapya. Katika mwaka wa 1882, Homer alionyesha michoro yake ya rangi ya maji ya Kiingereza huko New York. "Wanafalsafa wa sanaa waliona mabadiliko ya mtindo mara moja, ""Yeye ni Homer tofauti sana na yule tuliyemjua siku za nyuma,"" sasa picha zake ""zinagusa ndege ya juu zaidi... Ni kazi za Sanaa ya Juu". "Wanawake wa Homer hawakuwa tena ""vipepeo wanaojionyesha vazi lao la kipawa"" bali walikuwa ""wake na mama wa wanaume wenye nguvu, wasio na hofu, wenye afya"" ambao wana uwezo kamili wa kuvumilia nguvu na hali ya asili pamoja na wanaume wao." Mwaka 1883 Homer alihamia Prowse Neck, Maine, na kuishi katika nyumba ya familia yake katika nyumba ya gari iliyobadilishwa mita 75 kutoka bahari. Katika miaka ya 1880, Homer aliandika kitabu chake cha kwanza cha picha za baharini. Katika kitabu cha Undertow (1886), kinachotoa simulizi la kuokolewa kwa wanawake wawili wa kuogelea na walinzi wawili wa kiume, picha za Homer "zina uzito na mamlaka ya picha za kale". Katika Eight Bells (1886), mabaharia wawili wanachukua kwa uangalifu mwelekeo wao kwenye deck, kwa utulivu wakihesabu nafasi yao na kwa upanuzi, uhusiano wao na bahari; wana uhakika katika usafiri wao wa baharini lakini wanaheshimu nguvu zilizo mbele yao. Michoro mingine mashuhuri kati ya picha hizi za mapambano ya kutisha na asili ni Banks Fisherman, The Gulf Stream, Rum Cay, Mending the Nets, na Searchlight on Harbor Entrance, Santiago de Cuba. Baadhi ya michoro hiyo alirudia-rudia. Akiwa na umri wa miaka hamsini, Homer alikuwa amekuwa "Yankee Robinson Crusoe, aliyejificha kwenye kisiwa chake cha sanaa" na "msafiri mwenye brashi". "Hawa ni baadhi ya michoro ya Homer, ambayo gazeti la New York Evening Post liliandika: ""Huyu ni mchoraji wa kwanza na mmoja wa wasanii wa Amerika wenye nguvu zaidi.""" Hata hivyo, licha ya kutambuliwa sana na wachambuzi, kazi ya Homer haikupata umaarufu kama wa picha za kawaida za Salon au picha zenye kupendeza za John Singer Sargent. Picha za bahari zilipigwa kwa miaka mingi na Undertow alipata dola 400 tu. Katika miaka hiyo, Homer alipokea msaada wa kihisia-moyo hasa kutoka kwa mama yake, ndugu yake Charles, na dada-mkwe wake Martha ("Mattie"). Baada ya kifo cha mama yake, Homer akawa "mzazi" wa baba yake mzee lakini mwenye kutawala na Mattie akawa mwanamke wake wa karibu zaidi. Katika majira ya baridi kali ya 1884-1855, Homer alienda maeneo ya joto huko Florida, Cuba, na Bahamas na akafanya mfululizo wa rangi za maji kama sehemu ya tume ya Century Magazine. Alibadilisha bahari ya kijani ya Prout's Neck na anga la bluu la Karibea na watu wa New England na wenyeji weusi, akiongeza mbinu yake ya rangi ya maji, mada, na palette. Wakati wa safari hii alichora Watoto Chini ya Mti wa Mtende kwa Lady Blake, mke wa Gavana. Safari zake za kitropiki zilimchochea na kumrudisha upya kwa njia ileile kama safari za Paul Gauguin kwenda Tahiti. A Garden in Nassau (1885) ni mojawapo ya mifano bora ya rangi hizo za maji. Kwa mara nyingine tena, ujasiri na ubunifu wake ulisifiwa na wakosoaji lakini ulithibitika kuwa wa hali ya juu sana kwa wanunuzi wa sanaa wa jadi na "alitafuta faida bure". Hata hivyo, Homer aliishi kwa kiasi, na kwa bahati nzuri, ndugu yake tajiri Charles alitoa msaada wa kifedha alipohitajiwa. Homer alitembelea Key West, Florida, kati ya 1888 na 1903. Baadhi ya kazi zake zinazojulikana zaidi, A Norther, Key West, The Gulf Stream, Taking on Wet Provisions, na Palms in the Storm, zinasemekana kuwa zilitengenezwa huko. Homer alipata msukumo katika safari za kiangazi za kwenda kwenye klabu ya North Woods, karibu na kijiji cha Minerva, New York, katika Milima ya Adirondack. Katika likizo hizo za uvuvi, alijaribu kutumia rangi ya maji, na kutokeza kazi zenye nguvu na ustadi mwingi, nyimbo za upweke, asili, na maisha ya nje. Homer haogopi ukatili wa michezo ya damu wala mapambano ya kuishi. Athari za rangi hutumiwa kwa ujasiri na kwa urahisi. "Homeri alishinda kwa ufundi wa rangi ya maji na kwa ufundi wa kuchora, na kwa hivyo, kwa sababu ya ufundi wake wa kuchora, Homer aliweza ""kuunda mwili wa kazi ambayo haijawahi kulinganishwa.""" "Homero alichora mchoro wa ""The Fox Hunt"" mwaka 1893 ambao unaonyesha kundi la vipepeo wakikimbia juu ya mbweha." Picha hiyo ilikuwa kubwa zaidi ya Homer na ilinunuliwa mara moja na Chuo cha Sanaa cha Pennsylvania, na ikawa picha yake ya kwanza katika makusanyo makubwa ya makumbusho ya Marekani. Huntsman na Mbwa (1891) - Mwindaji wa pekee, asiye na hisia, na mbwa wake wa kupiga kelele kando yake, anaelekea nyumbani baada ya kuwinda na ngozi za nyati zilizozungukwa juu ya bega lake la kulia. "Kama ilivyoonyeshwa katika filamu ya mwisho ya ""The Gulf Stream"" (1899), mchezaji wa rangi nyeusi anaonekana akiwa amepigwa na maji katika mashua iliyoharibiwa, akiwa amezungukwa na papa na mafuriko ya bahari." Kufikia mwaka 1900, Homer hatimaye alipata utulivu wa kifedha, kwani michoro yake ilipata bei nzuri kutoka kwa majumba ya makumbusho na alianza kupokea kodi kutoka kwa mali isiyohamishika. Pia, aliachiliwa huru kutokana na madaraka ya kumtunza baba yake, ambaye alikuwa amekufa miaka miwili mapema. Homer aliendelea kuchora rangi za maji zenye kupendeza, hasa katika safari zake za kwenda Kanada na Karibea. "Kama vile ""Sikivu na kushoto,"" ""Mambo ya baharini"" na ""Mambo ya baharini"" ambayo hayana picha za binadamu, lakini ni ya mawimbi yanayopiga miamba katika mwangaza tofauti." Picha zake za majini za baadaye zinathaminiwa hasa kwa sababu ya uonyesho wao wa nguvu za asili, na kwa uzuri na nguvu zao. "Katika miaka yake ya mwisho ya maisha, mara kwa mara alifuata shauri alilokuwa amempa mwanafunzi mmoja wa sanaa mwaka wa 1907: ""Acha mawe kwa ajili ya uzee wako, ni rahisi.""" Homer alikufa mwaka 1910 akiwa na umri wa miaka 74 katika studio yake ya Prout's Neck na kuzikwa katika Makaburi ya Mount Auburn huko Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mchoro wake, Shooting the Rapids, Saguenay River, bado haujakamilika. Studio yake ya Prouts Neck, National Historic Landmark, sasa inamilikiwa na Jumba la Makumbusho la Sanaa la Portland, ambalo hutoa ziara.