Winslow Homer - The Obtuse Bard (draft 20150402) screen 057
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WINSLOW HOMER - HIGH CLIFF, COAST OF MAINE PAINTING I colored the eyeball to make this image easier to see. This one is more difficult and since it is a more abstract representation of the "lookout," as evidence of intention it is weak. Without Homer's "lookout" drawing and painting, this image would be even less usefull as evidence that Homer perceived and then intentionally painted this man. Even though it is sufficiently similiar to the form of the man in the lookout drawing and painting such that it is a match, it is not as useful because the chronological sequence is backwards. The lookout drawing and painting came after this painting.

This kind of evidence of intention cannot be considered in isolation. The rocks are abstract forms even in their natural state, exactly the kind of forms from which we can imagine such images. We could find faces in the photographs of actual rocks. That is probably why Winslow Homer liked waves crashing into the rocks on the Maine coast. Ocean waves crashing into the Maine coastline gave Winslow Homer a constant procession of illusions he could see, embody into his work, and still appear to be true to Nature.

Taylor provides Homer with what is from Allston's aesthetic perspective the ultimate compliment, "seemingly unconstructed but undeniable." That is evidence of what Allston regarded as perfection in Art, correspondence between the image of what it is and the image of what it is not.

Joshua Taylor was not the only person who seems to have noted secondary images in Homer's work, but he was the only published instance that I know.

Jules Prown, Chairman of the Art History Department at Yale, sent me a somewhat hedging, yet most encouraging, letter in July 1991. He wrote that he was "very skeptical in regard to secondary imagery." He then went on to mention a former student's paper written about secondary imagery perceived in a Homer watercolor. He added "I was surprised to find myself in agreement with what my student had seen, convinced that the secondary imagery was in fact there. So you may be on to something." Prown concluded his letter with, "...in the end, it will be the visual evidence in the works themselves, coming to light through close visual analysis, that will make or break your case." This presentation is the visual evidence which I hope makes my case.

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Copyright 1992-2015 Peter Bueschen
The presentation is available at The Obtuse Bard website http://obtusebard.org.