Audio Tour Stop 874

West Building Tour: Featured Selections stop 874

Following an extended trip to Europe in 1866–1867, Winslow Homer adopted an interest in painting outdoor scenes that owed much to the influence of contemporary French artists such as Gustave Courbet, Édouard Manet, and Claude Monet. Upon his return to the United States, Homer turned his attention to lively scenes of sports and recreation, painting warm and appealing images perfectly suited to the prevalent post–Civil War nostalgia for a simpler, more innocent America. Breezing Up (A Fair Wind), completed during the country’s centennial year, has become one of the best-known and most beloved artistic images of life in 19th-century America.

Breezing Up (A Fair Wind) (en)