Breezing Up

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The sea roared fiercely like a lion. The sea wrestled with the small boat as though it were trying to defeat it. Still the only concern of the crew was the fish they wanted to catch. The fish though were working in tandem with the sea. Their objective was to defeat the small crew. The crew will not allow these intentions to stop them though. They continue to fight with these obstacles. After a fierce battle ensues, the crew stays focused on their objectives. They achieve their goal. They catch a fish.

JasonB

Breezing Up (A Fair Wind), 1876 - National Gallery of Art, Washington

"Homer's early works had many curious parallels with that of the French impressionists, but they were not the result of influence, for impressionism had not yet been born in France. He was an independent American pioneer of impressionism.
- Lloyd Goodrich,
"American Watercolor and Winslow Homer" 1944"http://www.loftcam.com/homer.html

"Breezing Up captures the essence of Homer's feelings about the pleasures of childhood. The image looks strikingly fresh and immediate, but evidence suggests that the artist struggled with the composition. Originally, he painted three distant sailboats on the right; later, he eliminated the swift, diagonal movement of the foreground boat. He also painted out a figure of a boy next to the mast, replacing it with a small anchor; this further simplified and focused the composition. One critic wrote of Homer's finished work: "He has never told a story so well, nor has his pithy economy of expression in telling a story ever become him more. http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/homer/breeze.htm

"One of Homer's personal favorites, this vision of the sea as a background for children at play is far different from the stormy seascapes that would come to dominate his later work. As loved when it was created as it is now, the piece radiates a sincerity and enthusiasm reminiscent of Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn", which was published the same year."
http://www.allaboutartists.com/gallery/breezing.html

The lecture was very informative. The lecture helped to improve the understanding of why Winslow Homer painted what he did, when he did it. I was able to learn that the painting: Breezing Up (A Fair Wind) was painted toward the middle of his career, because he was in between his two themes, the first of which was about human interaction, and the last of which was about nature. Homer began to slowly fade people out of his artwork and focus on the power of nature. In Breezing Up (A Fair Wind) Homer mixed these two themes and had people interacting with the powers of nature.

There are many similarities between art and poetry. They both have the same basic goal in mind. They are really doing the same thing only with a different medium. For an artist that medium is a paintbrush and a canvas. For a poet that medium is a pen and paper. They are both telling a story in their own way, but both stories are interpretative. You can read out of it almost anything depending upon the way in which you look at it. They say: "like the brushstrokes of an artist, a writer uses words to create meaning." This is true, it is basically saying that a writer is using his words in order to convey to the reader the thoughts which he wants for him to think. He does this the same way an artist paints a picture in order to illustrate the way in which he wants you to feel.