Croquet Scene

This delightful piece, titled Croquet Scene, was completed by Winslow Homer whilst still a relatively young man. He had only been working professionally for a few years by the time of this piece in 1866.

The scene features three young women out playing croquet with a gentleman who helps to organise the game. The ladies are dressed in elegant clothing, enjoying a social occasion together, perhaps within a private garden. The game itself is signified by several hoops which are placed around the lawn, plus the odd croquet ball. The lady in blue to the left also holds a mallet in her hand, whilst leaning on its handle. The young man kneeling down wears a small hat and smart suit. He may actually be adjudicating the game in order to fairly decide the winner. Winslow Homer puts great detail on the clothing of each figure within this painting, underlining its nature as a social gathering rather than a serious sporting event. The lawn is cut off at the top of the painting, which trees and shrubs cutting across that section of the work. This perhaps represents the boundaries of the garden and adds to the personal nature of this gathering. Homer was only around thirty years of age at the time of this painting and had mainly worked as an illustrator up to that point.

Despite his relative inexperience, Homer was clearly technically skilled by this point and was starting to try out different genres of work to find the best path for his career. There is certainly a charm to this Croquet Scene, and Homer could probably have had a successful career just working in this manner for the rest of his life, but would eventually choose to broaden his scope into landscapes and seascapes. His variety would help to boost his reputation with academics and art historians, who rarely speak in favour of those who have limited their oeuvre to just a single type of content. This painting is 66cm wide and 40cm tall, in a standard landscape format. The piece can today be found at The Art Institute of Chicago, in the US. They have a number of important artworks by Winslow Homer, besides just Croquet Scene. The Herring Net, The Water Fan and many watercolour paintings include some of the highlights to be found here. Alongside the Met, this Chicago gallery offers one of the best surveys of the artist's work and includes different mediums to suit different tastes.

The artist spent much of his early career focusing on the lives of the upper classes, capturing their pastimes. At around the time of the American Civil War, paintings such as Croquet Scene would underline the influence of European life on Americans at that stage. Even since its independence, there remains a strong connection between American and European art, though artists such as Winslow Homer was starting to innovate within the US, rather than continuing to mimic their European cousins. The Hudson River School would also offer an insight into the potential of this nation as it looked to become more innovative within the art world. The 19th century perhaps marked the point at which the nation would come out of the shadow of its European roots and start to forge its own exciting path, with Homer's paintings helping to capture the changing mood at the time as well as the societal shift which occurred over the next few decades. Homer himself remains most famous for his seascapes, but actually there was plenty else to enjoy from other genres within his long and extensive career.