These two paintings may well be part of an artistic conversation. It is quite likely that the young American artist Max Bohm saw Winslow Homer's Nuit d'Ete while he was living in Paris. Homer's painting was shown at the Universal Exposition there in 1900 to much acclaim and then purchased by the Luxembourg Museum. By 1890, Homer's style had moved away from straightforward realism; his brushwork pointed toward abstraction and his subjects often hinted at some kind of mysticism. The two women dancing on a moonlit shore hint at the passing of time, just as the waves move, their master the moon will too.
Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Max Bohm (1868-1923) left home at nineteen to study art at Academie Julian in Paris. Bohm spent most of his adult life in France where he was recognized as an important American painter. In 1895, he settled at Etaples, an art colony on the English Channel in northern France. At home, he remained almost unknown until his return in 1914 at the outbreak of war. Bohm was awarded a gold medal in art at the Panama International Exposition at San Francisco in 1915.
In Bohm's Dance On the Shore, his style is similar to the Impressionists but his aims were with the Symbolists. Acknowledged for the eloquence of his linework, Bohm conjured extraordinary moods from ordinary lives. Caught forever in a vignette of pure joy, the two girls twirling on the beach is his masterpiece. The sunbeams, the clouds in the sky, the littoral shore, all seem to exist at this moment for no other purpose than to frame this moment of exaltation: it is good to be alive.
Images:
Winslow Homer - Nuit d'Ete (Summer Night), 1890, Musee D'Orsay, Paris.
Max Bohm - Dance On the Shore (Joy), 1918, National Arts Club, New York City.
2 comments:
I'd not seen the Homer, but the Bohm has always been a favorite of mine. Great pairing, Jane!
My experience was the reverse! I was familiar with the Homer but just recently discovered the Bohm painting in a book about the National Arts Club in New York City.
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