Homer’s images used in this catalogue differ greatly from the image above. Homer’s travels to Virginia throughout the war, eventually led to his returns during the 1870s to observe and portray what had happened to the lives of former slaves in the first decade of the Reconstruction. His visual effects in differentiating the Civil War and Reconstruction era presents the shift in Homer’s own approach and his viewers. It is assumed that these current events affected Homer and his art. Nonetheless, Homer provides visual evidence to the social and cultural history that leads to his “non-political” views of the American black citizen.
The purpose to this catalogue is to explore the historical, and subjective context of race relations in America through the visual interpretations throughout Homer’s career, and to expand the discussion on the images of blacks painted by Homer. Homer’s visual images of blacks in art fall into three categories: the Civil War, Reconstruction and later years of blacks in the Caribbean. Homer was well known for his variety of art subjects, the most prominent being a reclusive spirit and interest …show more content…
His direct studies of nature highlighted the need for light and the idea that light was the more important than objects themselves. The way Homer presents blacks in figures 2-9 are similar to his depiction of his relationship to nature. Marc Simpson, whose catalog entry and essay on The Bright Side, describes Homer as a depicter of the “real” that further conceives that his art was communicative. For him his preoccupation with light and the naturalistic appearance was meant to imitate nature. His choice to painting black figures was boldly primitive in that his subjects were drawn from real