The Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine recently acquired new works by Winslow Homer, “An Open Window” and “River Cove” by Andrew Wyeth.
“An Open Window” is one of a series of four paintings that Homer created in 1872 that features a solitary woman dressed in black, facing away from the viewer. The unknown woman is standing in a modest room, looking out onto a bright landscape likely inspired by Homer’s summer travels that year to Ulster County, New York. The bold differentiation between the dimly lit interior in the foreground and the light-saturated landscape in the background reveals Homer’s aesthetic experimentation at a crucial moment in his career, and his close observation of such European old masters as Johannes Vermeer.
“River Cove” is a 1958 tempera painting by Andrew Wyeth that is regularly identified by art historians as among his most important and impressive artworks. The painting of a small jetty outside the artist’s home in Cushing, Maine, is devoid of human presence, yet includes subtle indication of the presence of birds and aquatic life. Its most extraordinary feature is its near-inversion of landscape imagery: the majority of the peaceful landscape view appears upside down, with the forest reflected in calm waters.
Wyeth was the son of American painter N.C. Wyeth and the father of artist Jamie Wyeth, who cited Winslow Homer as an influence and used both watercolors and tempera to create what he called “Homeric” landscapes.
The Portland Museum of Art is located at Seven Congress Square in Portland, Maine. Call 207.775.6148 or see: www.portlandmuseum.org for more information.