Holiday in Camp -- Soldiers Playing "Foot-Ball"
1865

About the Item

Holiday in Camp -- Soldiers Playing "Foot-Ball" Wood engraving, 1865 After Winslow Homer Unsigned (Signed in text in title caption, see photo) Published in Harper's Weekly July 15, 1865 A very rare early image of men playing football. Note the round ball. Condition: Usual vintage condition with folds, creases, small tears in the sheet edge and very small stains. Tears into image bottom left. Common with Harper's Weekly engravings due to the fragile newsprint that was used and the 150 plus years of aging. Image size: 9 1/4 x 13 3/4 inches "Winslow Homer’s wood engravings resulted from a collaborative process that involved many hands and transformed his designs into metal (electrotype) printing plates. To begin, Homer usually drew on a prepared, end-grain boxwood block—most often consisting of smaller pieces of wood bolted together. A team of professional wood engravers then incised the blocks. Next, pictorial and text components were arranged into a page layout and a wax mold was made of the whole. This mold was coated with powdered graphite and placed in an electrically charged chemical bath together with plates of copper. The chemicals and electric current caused copper particles to form on the graphite coating, creating a precise metal replica of the page’s type and engraved images. This replica, reinforced with various metals, was then used to print the images we call wood engravings." Courtesy: The Clark Museum Winslow Homer (1836-1910) "Winslow Homer (1836-1910) was an American landscape, marine and genre artist. A master of oil painting and watercolor, he was also a gifted printmaker, illustrator and pictorial journalist. Born in Boston, the artist received no real formal training with the exception of some life-drawing classes at the National Gallery of Design and a stint studying painting with Frédéric Rondel in 1861. From 1859 until the mid-1870s, Homer worked as a commercial illustrator. During the Civil War, the artist gained international public recognition for his pictorial documentation of the battlefield commissioned by Harper's Weekly. Post-war, Homer traveled first to Europe then returned to the States to establish a studio in New York City. There he began executing illustrations depicting vignettes from everyday life. The public embraced the authenticity of these portrayals as embodying the democratic spirit, considering them a visual similarity to the poetry of Walt Whitman at that time. Although popular and successful, in 1876 Homer abandoned commercial work, devoting attention to painting his vision of the American scene full-time. Homer's subject matter included landscape and rural genre scenes, but he also found inspiration in the sea and traveled extensively to coastal locations - England, Cuba, the Caribbean, the Bahamas, Florida and Prouts Neck, Maine where he eventually would live out his life. His dramatic and forceful renderings of the Atlantic seascape remain unsurpassed and some of his most celebrated paintings. The Adirondack Mountains were an additional important destination. For 35 years the artist found inspiration for his work in the rugged terrain, the life of the outdoorsman and the natural beauty of the region. In the last fifteen years of his life, Homer was revered as the nation's foremost painter. At the time of his death, Homer's work was represented in more public collections than any other living American artist. Considered by many to be 19th century America's most gifted artist, Homer's works are often viewed as embodying the beginnings of a truly "national" art that adopted the American experience as its subject matter. His ability to capture the spirit of America through images characterized by their directness, realism, subjectivity and color, resonate with the nation and hold a special position in the history of American art." Courtesy: The Hyde Collection Museum, Glens Falls, NY

Creation Year:

1865

Dimensions:

Height: 9.25 in (23.5 cm)Width: 13.75 in (34.93 cm)

Medium:

Engraving

Movement & Style:

American Realist

After:

Winslow Homer (1836 - 1910, American)

Period:

1860-1869