“The New Novel”
This watercolor on paper painting is by the American Realism artist, Winslow Homer, from 1877 and is titled “The New Novel”.
Though Homer is most known for his larger scale oil works, he started delving into watercolor painting in the 1870s. After documenting the Civil War of the 1860s, Homer did a complete shift during the post-war years and attempted to capture the light and leisure life of more rural subjects.
This painting was first displayed the year it was made, in 1877 at the annual exhibition of the American Watercolor Society. In the 1870s, there was a sort of culture shift happening in the United States. Reading and leisurely activities were seen as unproductive tasks that were a waste of time for women whose minds should not wander. According to cultural critics of the time, reading immersed women within their own minds and kept them from being productive members of society.
Homer’s depiction of the young woman immersed in a novel contradicts and almost defies that conservative thought. It was a subject near and dear to Homer, as he produced several paintings of women reading during the 1870s. It is unknown who the subject of the painting is, but Homer’s ability to apply his oil painting skills to the watercolor medium is evident.
“The New Novel” is currently in the collections of Michele & Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts in Springfield, Massachusetts. Due to the watercolor medium, it is only periodically put on display in an effort to conserve and preserve this important work as exposure to light makes the paint colors fade.
For more on Winslow Homer, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
