August in the Country – The Sea-Shore (from "Harper's Weekly," Vol. III)
Original title: August in the Country – The Sea-Shore (from "Harper's Weekly," Vol. III)
kurzbeschreibung
Winslow Homer's 1859 wood engraving gathers a group of people at the seaside. The print belongs to a series the artist drew for Harper's Weekly and presents a summer leisure pastime in the countryside.
Description
In the foreground, several figures in the dress of the period lounge and stand about, talking; hats and parasols suggest a bright day. A man at the center holds up a plant and evidently explains it to those around him. Further back, people have settled on a rock, and boats can be made out on the water. Black and white dominates the entire sheet, which stretches across the format as a broad coastal landscape.
Context
The wood engraving was drawn for Harper's Weekly, one of the most important illustrated magazines in the nineteenth-century United States. In the late 1850s Homer worked as an illustrator for the paper, supplying scenes of American everyday life. The series 'August in the Country' was devoted to summer pleasures and appeared in 1859.
Impact
A relaxed, carefree mood speaks from the print, bringing the beach life of summer close to the viewer. Despite the absence of color, the drawing unfolds a rich abundance of detail whose lively effect arises from the handling of line.
Technique
The work was produced by the relief process of wood engraving, in which the design is cut away from a woodblock. Hatching and thin lines reproduce light and shadow precisely. The image measures roughly 23.5 by 34.9 centimeters.
AI-generated description text
Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)