The Dinner Horn
Original title: The Dinner Horn (from "Harper's Weekly," Vol. XIV)
kurzbeschreibung
Winslow Homer's wood engraving 'The Dinner Horn' appeared in Harper's Weekly on June 11, 1870. It shows a woman sounding a horn to call field workers to their meal. The image is in black and white and measures 13 3/4 by 9 inches.
Description
A woman in a long dark dress with a belt and her hair pinned up blows a horn toward an open house. A black cat sits inside the house, looking at her. Beyond, a field stretches out with people at work under a cloudy sky. The simple, rustic house has an open door and a window; inside, a bowl and a pot can be made out.
Context
Homer made the engraving for Harper's Weekly, one of the most influential American magazines of the nineteenth century, for which he worked as an illustrator in the 1860s and 1870s and produced many scenes of rural life. The dinner horn was common in rural areas to call workers from the fields. At the time, Homer often stayed in rural parts of New England, where he made sketches for his work.
Impact
The scene feels quiet and idyllic, yet the horn brings acoustic energy to the moment. The black-and-white technique brings out the contrasts between the woman's dark silhouette and the light areas of sky, giving the image graphic clarity.
Technique
The wood engraving is a relief process: the design is cut into a wood block and transferred to paper with printing ink. Fine lines and hatching create varied gray tones and textures, as is typical of wood-engraved illustrations in nineteenth-century magazines.
AI-generated description text
Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)