1904, Winslow Homer, Kissing the Moon -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) (special exhibition)
From the exhibition label: Kissing the Moon is among Homer’s most distinctive works, painted near the end of his life. Its puzzling composition of a hunter and sailors—fixed in a liminal moment and nearly submerged by waves—exemplifies the artist’s ongoing investigation of themes of incipient conflict and ambiguous outcomes. The painting has been interpreted in biographical terms, possibly referencing the mortality of the three Homer brothers. The artist resisted any explanation of the work, noting only that he preferred that viewers keep their distance from it. He wrote to his dealer in 1904, “Your window is the only place where a picture can be seen in a proper manner . . . to look at and not smell of.”
1904, Winslow Homer, Kissing the Moon -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) (special exhibition)
From the exhibition label: Kissing the Moon is among Homer’s most distinctive works, painted near the end of his life. Its puzzling composition of a hunter and sailors—fixed in a liminal moment and nearly submerged by waves—exemplifies the artist’s ongoing investigation of themes of incipient conflict and ambiguous outcomes. The painting has been interpreted in biographical terms, possibly referencing the mortality of the three Homer brothers. The artist resisted any explanation of the work, noting only that he preferred that viewers keep their distance from it. He wrote to his dealer in 1904, “Your window is the only place where a picture can be seen in a proper manner . . . to look at and not smell of.”