1881 -1910 · Rescue, storm and coast of Maine

From the cliffs of Prout's Neck to the Gulf Stream, Winslow Homer reduces the navy to its essential forces: wave, wind, rock and human survival.

After a stay in Cullercoats, a fishing village in the north-east of England, Winslow Homer understood that the sea could become the central subject of a work and not the setting of an anecdote. Installed at Prout's Neck in Maine in 1883, he observed storms, surf and changing light from his workshop. The Life Line still puts human action at the forefront: suspended from the rescue system, a man brings a woman above the waves. Breezing Up, started earlier, on the contrary shows a favorable wind and a boat governed by a calm group; the sea forms a space of learning and hope. In The Gulf Stream, a black sailor drifts on a dismasted boat, surrounded by sharks and dominated by a distant grain. The image concentrates solitude, history and ambiguity of possible help. Wind from the northeast almost abandons all narration: wave and rock confront each other in a repeated movement, without necessary human presence. Homer paints directly, sometimes resumes his paintings at length and uses watercolor to capture the climates of the Bahamas or Florida. His last seascapes seek neither tourist panorama nor abstract sublime. They make us feel that the coast is a place where all stability remains provisional. The selection "Marines and coasts of Winslow Homer" notably compares The Life Line and Breezing Up /A Fair Wind. His reading favors composition.

Homer gradually lets the sea occupy the entire image: man can cross it or resist it, never reduce it to a setting.