Art and Artifice

ARCHIVE PAGE 32 - Summer 2020

Dark Outside VMFA Museum

Dark Outisde Museum

Inside 2013 the VMFA

Inside the VMFA in Richmond, Virginia

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John Berger's Ways of Seeing is a famous art instruction on seeing art through a new awareness of elements that get overlooked or are somehow obscure for the casual viewer. The book was first published in 1972 and based on the BBC television series. The Sunday Times critic commented: "This is an eye-opener in more ways than one: by concentrating on how we look at paintings . . . he will almost certainly change the way you look at pictures." AMAZON

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Winslow Homer Kissing the Moon

Winslow Homer Kissing the Moon image diagram

National Review: Puzzling over Meaning in Winslow Homer's Kissing the Moon

Writer Brian T. Allen works on understanding Homer's large painting (30" x 40" inches) and finds a River Styx symbolism. Allen notes that Homer left no written info about the image, that it was a personal work and not a commission, and that Homer's later works contained few figures, so these particular three must've been purposefully placed and not just "appropriate decoration."

My first question, not discussed by Mr. Allen, is that Homer was one of three male children, and the three in the image could be he and his two brothers incorporated into an intense sea scene with a sunset (presumably not a sunrise) sky. On the right hand side the wave coloring is passing over the stern of the boat, also on the bow (see the two image snippets below). The waves action is either handled haphazardly, or is meant to imply a kind of ghostly effect around the edges of the boat, a translucency which might suggest the image is an apparition (or is becoming one).

More likely, though, the details such as these are just Homer not giving enough time to model the boat realistically as it dips and moves through the high waves.

The title itself, Kissing the Moon, may suggest a certain Homeresque humor that could be the central meaning in the image for the painter.

Stern of boat Winslow Homer Kissing the Moon