saw lots of homer art in portland maine. ( )

Winslow Homer would have always been on my list of ten favorite artists (non-comic book, anyway) - and that was before I learned what high esteem he was held in by the rest of the world. The biographical part of the book is necessarily limited to hard facts; Homer was obsessively private, never married, and hated to discuss his work with the public. Anyway, it was interesting to read what info there was of his life, from his early days as an illustrator of sheet music,to his days doing illustrations for Harper's Weekly, to the time of his life when he finally embarked on his own path, influenced by many artists and styles (Mathew Brady, Claude Monet, Japanese art of the time, English landscape artists...). But he was his own man in the end, perfecting and experimenting with his art and various media until he reached a level of almost careless mastery. This is misleading, however; the author does a fine job of explaining for the untrained eye the many subtle factors that set Homer apart from the rest of the art world. The prints are well-reproduced, and include a smattering of art by other artists who the author mentions in the text as perhaps influenced by, or influencing Homer. My only quibble would be that a larger portion of the reproductions should have been in color, particularly given the excellent points made in the text about Homer's use of color and light. Additionally, a few of Homer's greatest masterworks are disappointingly rendered in black and white here. Still, a nice introduction to a giant of American art. ( )