What Shall We Do Next? (from "Harper's Bazar," Vol. II)
Original title: What Shall We Do Next? (from "Harper's Bazar," Vol. II)
kurzbeschreibung
Winslow Homer made the wood engraving "What Shall We Do Next?" on July 31, 1869 for Harper's Bazar. It belongs to his illustration work of the late 1860s and presents a group of women in a garden: one sits occupied with needlework while others stand behind her holding bats.
Description
A woman sits on a bench doing needlework, wearing a checked top and dark trousers. Several women in long, elegant dresses and hats stand behind her, some with sticks or bats in hand. Toward the back, a pillared pavilion framed by plants closes off the view. The layout runs horizontally, figures lined up from left to right. Even light falls across the view with no visible shadows, as was usual for wood engravings.
Context
The engraving was made for Harper's Bazar, a magazine aimed at a middle-class female readership. During the 1860s Winslow Homer worked regularly as an illustrator for various periodicals. That women here pursue leisure activities points to the growing social acceptance of such pursuits in the postwar years. Domestic needlework and athletic exercise appear side by side in this view, a mixture typical of the period.
Impact
The arrangement and the precise rendering of clothing and architecture give the print a calm, even temper. A mood of middle-class idyll and relaxed sociability comes through.
Technique
For this wood engraving the design was cut into a woodblock, which then served as the printing matrix. The method allows fine lines and details, visible in the textures of the clothing and the architecture. The reproduction stays black and white, the standard for magazine wood engravings of the day.
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Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)