After the Hurricane, Bahamas

Notes from the museum

Revered as America’s master of watercolor, Winslow Homer did not begin working in the medium until the mature age of thirty-seven. As a watercolorist, Homer adapted his practice to the diverse locales he visited. His sojourns in the tropics took him to the Bahamas, Bermuda, Cuba, and various locations in Florida. In each new environment, the self-taught artist pushed the flexible medium in new directions as he applied his increasingly sophisticated understanding of color and light to a new set of atmospheric conditions. This compelling watercolor was painted during Homer’s second trip to the Bahamas in the winter of 1898–99. Depicting a luckless man washed up on the beach, surrounded by fragments of his shattered craft, the work demonstrates the artist’s fascination with the rapid and dangerous weather changes of the region. Here sunlight glints through gradually thinning storm clouds. Homer employed thickly applied opaque red and yellow pigments for the seaweed tossed on the sand, creating a contrast with the thin washes and fluid brushstrokes that he used to render the receding waves.

Text: Art Institute of Chicago (open access). Our full story for this work is coming soon.

Slow Look

1. The whole picture Let your eyes wander. Where do they want to rest?
2. The light Find the brightest spot. What is it showing you?
3. The edges Look at what is half cut off at the borders.
4. One small detail Choose one tiny thing and stay with it for a while.
5. The whole picture again Step back. Has it changed for you?

About Winslow Homer

Winslow Homer was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters of 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in American art in general.

Painter profile →