Fishing Boats, Key West 1903

Winslow Homer made this watercolor, Fishing Boats, Key West, sometime during his winter sojourns to Florida between 1885 and 1904. Homer was a master of the watercolor technique, which involves applying translucent pigments to paper. What’s fascinating here is the contrast between the looseness of Homer’s brushstrokes and the industrial context. He used fluid strokes of blues and greens to capture the essence of the sea and sky, but the subject matter depicts a commercial fishing operation, a business dependent on manual labor. The weight of the paper and the way the colors blend together create a sense of immediacy, as if we are witnessing the scene firsthand, which is interesting since commercial fishing itself represents a complex interaction between man and nature. Homer’s choice of watercolor, a medium often associated with spontaneity, seems almost at odds with the grit and hard work of the fishermen. The beauty of the watercolor shouldn’t distract us from the labor of those who depended on the sea for their livelihoods.