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Inspired by: Winslow Homer - The Life Line – 1884

In 1881 Homer spent a year in the coastal town of Cullercoats, England. A fishing village, and an artist’s colony, which attracted painters to its beautiful landscapes and the sea. There he witnessed the life brigade rescue of a floundering ship. It was the essence of man against the sea, the driving force of his early marine paintings.

Two years later, in Atlantic City, new Jersey, he saw a demonstration of the breeches buoy, a recent innovation in lifesaving technology. Secured firmly to ship and shore, the device permitted the transfer of stranded passengers. The following year he painted The Life Line, one of several he did at that time on the rescue theme. In 1866, the apparatus was first used when the brigantine Tenterden, escaping a hurricane, floundered at the mouth of the Tyne in England. The local life brigade rescued the crew along with the Captain’s wife and child. Could this be the wife?

To see original: https://bit.ly/3JzEHVW https://bit.ly/3JzEHVW

Homer lived in Boston until his early twenties. He was mostly self-taught. His mother, a gifted watercolorist, got him started. After a short apprenticeship with a commercial lithographer, he began his career in illustration. For the next twenty years, he made his living working for magazines like Harper’s Weekly. He subsequently picked up a paint brush. His love was oils, but his watercolors were cheaper, they sold well, and brought him greater recognition.
He loved the ocean, and in the 1880s, he moved to Prouts Neck on the coast of Maine. It was here that he began to paint his water scenes. He not only painted the sea itself, but pitted "man against the elements" to show how powerful the water could be. He later stopped painting human figures all together and just focused on the sea. Today, Homer is known as the foremost American marine painter.
This painting was inspired by a trip to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, Canada. There, aboard fishing vessels, he watched men, cast adrift on the open sea, take their chance with the waves and weather. To see the original painting: https://bit.ly/4hSO2DK