Art Institute of Chicago

Campfire, Adirondacks

Winslow Homer

Date

c. 1892

Medium

Transparent and opaque watercolor, with blotting and scraping, on thick, moderately-textured, ivory wove paper

Culture

United States

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

In Campfire, Adirondacks , the guide Rufus Wallace is seated among the sheltering roots of a giant overturned hemlock. The tree’s roots are expressive formal elements in their own right, but these ancient tentacles also seem to protect the resting man. Like many of Homer’s Adirondacks watercolors, Campfire, Adirondacks was conceived on the spot, with washes laid in to suggest areas of light and shadow, but the artist probably finished the work back in his studio in Maine or at the North Woods Club. Conveying a convincing sense of immediacy and spontaneity, Homer’s watercolors were often the result of deliberate planning and several campaigns of painting. Sometimes ephemeral effects were difficult to recapture in the studio, as in the smoke of the campfire where color was applied and blotted repeatedly. Visual evidence indicates that Homer used resist to define the crooked tree trunks on the lefthand side of the composition. Without this tool, it would have been impossible to achieve the intricate contours of the trunks while simultaneously applying an even wash to the surroundings. Over a preliminary gray wash, Homer, following his graphite underdrawing, would have brushed on the resist in the shape of the tree trunks. Even before it dried, it would form a strong, cohesive film on the paper’s surface without soaking into the fibers; because oil repels water, it would have remained undisturbed while Homer brushed dark-blue wash across it and the neighboring area. Once the wash dried, he would have scrubbed off the resist with a dull scraper or stiff brush and a solvent such as turpentine. Homer’s vigorous cleaning may have broken up the resist , scattering tiny fragments that became lodged in slow-drying, dense, or gum-rich passages of watercolor elsewhere on the sheet. When he was finished, the forms of the trunks were visible against the blue background.

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