Existing comment:
Winslow Homer
Coursing the Hare, ca 1882-83
Already a well-established artist in the United States, Homer traveled to England in 1881. He settled in the northern fishing village of Cullercoats, near the mouth of the Tyne River, where he remained for a year and a half. The journey was a turning point in the artist's career, a fact not lost on contemporary critics who noted the dark mood, fluent brushstrokes, the heightened action of his English output. These qualities are evident in this scene of coursing, the sport of hunting hares and other field animals with greyhounds. Homer has exaggerated the scale relationships between the women spectators waving on the hare, the sportsman in full chase, and the hare running for its life, so that they appear as archetypes of pursuer and pursued rather than participants in an exactly rendered hunt. The resulting strangeness of this painting shows Homer's affinity with Symbolist artists for whom unconscious feelings were more important to the artist than the exact representation of nature. |