Winslow Homer’s 1865 Oil Painting: Formal Analysis and Artistic Principles

One way to understand and appreciate works of art is by means of formal analysis, that is by looking at them not in terms of subject matter or technique, but in terms of purely formal concepts.

Through a careful study of Renaissance (late 15th- and early 16th-century) and Baroque (17th-century) works of art, Wölfflin distilled a number of principles, which he arranged in five pairs, which helped him characterize the differences between the styles of the two periods. I found that Homer was influenced by both Renaissance and Baroque principles.

//.http://arthistoryresources.net/baroque-art-theory-2014/wolfflin-renaissance-baroque.html

1. Linear or Painterly. I think this is a linear painting, where all the edges of the farmer are found and stands out boldly like a piece of sculpture. Out of nowhere something emerges.

2. Planar or Recessional. Planar means that the elements of the painting are arranged on a series of planes parallel to the picture plane. There is only one plane given, the front plane, starting with the man, who directs our attention towards the left.

3. Closed Form or Open Form. The painting is self-contained. The blue sky closes the composition down to a third. The closed form conveys an impression of stability and balance, It requires stability and balance to swing a scythe The composition is based on verticals and horizontals that echo the form of the frame and its delimiting function. Diagonals are present in the scattered straw, the scythe, the shadows and the man’s strap to suggest action and movement. The scythe’s shadow is the diagonal line that leads the viewer into the painting to the focal point, the man.

4. Multiplicity and  Unity. The Unity of Homer’s picture is much more thoroughgoing, largely achieved by means of the strong, directed light on the hay field. 

5. Absolute clarity and Relative Clarity Absolute Clarity is arrived at through representing things as they are, taken singly. The ideal was absolute clarity in the depiction of subject matter. Composition, light, and colour served merely to define form.