Winslow Homer is considered the most important American painter of the second half of the 19th century. Principally known for his depictions of stormy seas, Homer was one of the first artists to focus on the theme of bathers on the beach, which had recently been made fashionable by Eugène Boudin in Paris in the mid-1860s.
A self-taught painter, Homer was receptive to the new European trends in art. While there is no evidence that he met the future Impressionists during his trip to Paris in 1867, the paintings that he produced in the late 1860s reveal similar artistic concerns. Among Homer’s works, Beach Scene comes closest to Impressionism, both for its lively handling and its luminosity. In order to paint it, Homer located his canvas parallel to the shoreline but a few feet back from it, resulting in a composition structured through three broad, horizontal bands of almost identical size. The scene is almost devoid of incidental detail and the perspective seems flattened. Perhaps the most striking element is the emphasis on the reflections of the children on the wet sand, the liveliness of which contrasts with the real figures.
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