The Coolest Spot in New England – Summit of Mount Washington
Original title: The Coolest Spot in New England – Summit of Mount Washington Homer (from "Harper's Bazar," Vol. III)
kurzbeschreibung
Where many mountain panoramas of the period celebrate nothing but the view, Winslow Homer's wood engraving of 1870 keeps its eye on the people standing on the summit of Mount Washington. It appeared in Harper's Bazar on July 23, 1870, and takes summer tourism in the White Mountains as its subject.
Description
Two men and a woman have settled on rocky ground in the foreground; one of the men wears a hat and jacket, and the woman holds a flower. Behind them an elegantly dressed woman stands on a raised platform and looks out, her hair and dress blown by the wind. A broad mountain landscape with clouds and the Tip-Top House closes off the view. Black and white runs throughout, as is usual for a wood engraving.
Context
In the nineteenth century Mount Washington drew many travelers who came for the prospect from New England's highest peak. The Tip-Top House, an early mountain hotel of 1853, gave them lodgings. Homer made the engraving for Harper's Bazar, an illustrated weekly with a wide readership. The print puts the leisure and nature-going of the rising postwar middle class at its center.
Impact
From the quiet foreground the eye moves to the stirring figure of the woman on the platform, whose pose stresses how far the land opens out. The relaxed sitters and the woman caught by the wind play against each other, lending the picture a lively, almost theatrical note. For all the detailed linework of the engraving, the overall impression stays calm.
Technique
A relief process, wood engraving depends on cutting the design out of a block of wood. Homer used fine parallel lines to build tone and texture, as was typical of the reproductive graphics made for magazines of the day. The black-and-white sheet was produced in an edition for Harper's Bazar.
AI-generated description text
Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)