Storm Coming 1884

Winslow Homer made this drawing of a landscape with charcoal and graphite. It shows an approaching storm and, in the foreground, a lone figure running towards shelter. Homer was working in the United States at a time of rapid social and economic change. The Civil War had ended only a few years earlier. As a society, America was concerned with questions of personal and national identity. The natural landscape played an important role as a source of national pride. Homer’s drawing also reflects an interest in rural life, showing a man at work in the fields. Yet the coming storm might also be understood as a metaphor for wider anxieties about the future. Art historians look at artists' sketchbooks and correspondence, contemporary reviews, and the social history of the time to understand the meanings that images hold. We know that art is never made in a vacuum, but always in response to its historical moment.