At the Window,

1872

Distinct among the images of sunlit rural life that constituted the bulk of Winslow Homer’s production in 1872 is a group of four closely related scenes remarkable for their interiority of setting and mood. Each work depicts the same similarly attired young woman, pensively standing or seated in a darkened room before an open window that reveals a glimpse of bright countryside. Homer evidently thought <em>At the Window</em> the most compelling of these, as it was this picture he chose to exhibit the following year at the Century Association in New York, where the <em>Evening Post</em> deemed it "strongly painted and admirably drawn." A subsequent review moved beyond concerns of facture to convey some of the image’s mysterious appeal, describing a "young woman sitting in quiet shadow, while outside the world is gay with rollicking sunshine." The identification of the woman in still another account as "a Salem girl," referring to the Massachusetts seaport, provides a plausible underlying narrative for all the paintings, as the sitter — whose distinctive black dress likely signifies mourning — becomes the bereaved companion of a sailor lost at sea. If this hypothesis is true, then these works anticipate by a decade Homer’s engagement with the theme of men and the sea, which was to become a crucial part of his overarching preoccupation with man’s struggle against nature.