An EYE for the OCEAN

When Winslow Homer (1836-1910) first exhibited his painting, Northeaster, 1895, there were two men in foul-weather gear crouched on the rocks to the left

- JOHN O'HERN

Sometime before 1901, he painted the figures out and re-worked some areas of the wave. The painting became somewhat abstract but reveals the full force of a “nor'easter” off the coast of Maine—without the viewer wondering about why the men are there and what will happen to them. Homer’s studio at Prouts Neck, now beautifully restored and open to the public, sits on a rocky cliff overlooking the ocean.

Homer wrote, “The life that I have chosen gives me my full hours of enjoyment for the balance of my life. The sun will not rise, or set, without my notice, and thanks.”

Christopher W. Benson grew up “in and on” the water on the New England coast, a lot farther south than Maine. Newport, Rhode Island, was one of the country’s five leading seaports in colonial times, long before the mansions of the gilded age were built along its shore.

Benson’s seascapes, like Shorebreak, embody his deftly blending abstraction and realism. He has said, “I want to make de Koonings and hide them inside of Homers.” The eye and the mind wander along his fluid brush strokes, contemplating the translucent green of the breaking wave and the deeper blue of the distant sea, the depiction of an imagined scene and the energetic surface of paint. He remarks, “The thing I love is the paint. And I like the surface in both the realism and the abstraction.”