Sunshine and Shadow, Prout's Neck

Museum record 16834: Sunshine and Shadow, Prout's Neck by Winslow Homer. A verified entry point for discovery.

What to notice

For Sunshine and Shadow, Prout's Neck (record 16834), start with modern, expressive, atmospheric. Compare the focal subject, edge treatment, and atmosphere before moving on.

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As its title implies, Sunshine and Shadow, Prout’s Neck explores a specific effect of light on the sea. This watercolor places the viewer on the rocky Maine shore among the scrub and juniper bushes, the latter rendered in fluid black strokes with an elegance of gesture comparable to Japanese calligraphy. Despite Homer's stated antipathy to the straight horizon line, the artist’s 1894 group of reductive Prout's Neck watercolors focuses on the horizon as a locus of beauty. Accordingly, Homer started work o…