Art History Analysis: Weaning The Calf

Portrait taken from North Carolina Museum of Art

The art culture reflected the overall mood of society during The Reconstruction Era. Winslow Homer was not the cliche painter, as he had a strange way of captivating man’s relationship with a harsh wilderness. As an artist, he grew up during the transition between slavery and emancipation. When he was young he was sent to the front line of the American Civil War in hopes of learning more about what was going on around him. Prior to this exposure, his paintings consisted of marine depictions with individuals living their daily lives, which was the extent of his knowledge. This experience changed his outlook on the purpose of war and relationships with African Americans (PMA). After the Civil War, equality was gradually being accepted during the Reconstruction Era but at a pace many believed too slow. Winslow was greatly fascinated by this as he chose to challenge if the society was actually changing or if the reality of equality was simply a facade. In Weaning the Calf, painted by Winslow Homer, he indirectly contrasts the heated political issues tied with racism after Emancipation with the potential for peaceful relationships between African Americans and whites in the context of everyday southern life. He achieves this by combining the concept of ruthless war coexisting with the elegance of nature and how these concepts relate to Emancipation during the Reconstruction Era.

Like all observationists, Winslow Homer's perspective on life, equality, and relationships within was unsteady, greatly changing over his lifetime. These changes of beliefs are articulated in his early painting, “Prisoners from the front line“, depicting a prisoner captured before the Civil War, in comparison with his later painting “A visit from the old mistresses “, depicting the uneasiness of slaves revisiting their previous master.

Homers "Prisoners from the front line" (left) and "A visit from the old mistress" (right) taken from Metropolitan Museum of Art

Though it is clear his painting styles changed, for instance a vivid oil painting with a sensual nature scene on the left versus a roughly painted portrait with dull figures on the right, Homer manages to capture the peacefulness of these moments. It is immensely ironic to feel at ease when looking at these paintings when in reality they consist of war related and racial issues. The significance of painting these paradoxes is much more than just ironic. In fact, Homer displays two specifically different ideas at the same time so the reader may reflect on these issues existing together. The essence of this is in “Weaning the Calf” where societal unrest after the Civil War is placed closely to the idea that existing together may become peaceful, of which will be analyzed further.

The societal unrest corresponds to the heated issues relative to Emancipation in the latter 1800s. During the Civil War era, slavery was evident throughout the southern states causing a time of trauma and political strife. Many painters, such as John Ross Key (Left), worked to cultivate this time of turmoil. He showed the suffering and inequality in a very straightforward manner, obtaining great attention from the popular audience. In one of his particular paintings, “Boys Before the War”, two African American males are stationed at a cotton picking farm in a standstill portrait. This shows inequality in civil war times exactly as how we would expect to see it.

Homer, however, captivated this in a very abstract manner. He was highly knowledgeable in that inequality was a genuine problem, but the root was not just as simple as blunt racism. In many of his paintings, such as “Gulf Stream” and “Lifeline”, he portrays a relationship of African Americans with a harsh wilderness which can be assumed to be oppression.

"Gulf Stream" (left) and "Lifeline" (right) taken from Metropolitan Museum of Art

In “Weaning of the Calf,” Homer shows the political issues tied within racism by showing even after Emancipation, manual labor was beneath the whites. The two white boys stand and watch as the African child is struggling to hold the reluctant calf which was taken from it’s mother. Also, Homer abstractly brings together the struggles of growing up in slavery, which is emphasized by the actual weaning of the calf, with the agony of war, which is shown by the mother calf’s expression. The purpose of weaning a calf is to teach the baby to live on it’s own, away from the mothers nurture. In most cases, the calf will put up an immense struggle, as shown by Homers painting (Weaning). By incorporating the realism of this struggle into his painting, it causes the audience to feel the tension between the African boy and the reluctant calf. The general picture is a story of growing pains and the struggles associated during Emancipation. Weaning the Calf was painted quickly after The Act of 1875 was drafted. This law stated that African Americans were finally free of slavery and equal human beings. Homer wanted to captivate the pains of growing up in slavery abstractly, so he chose to do so with a comparison to everyday farm life. He reiterates this struggle by painting a lifelike action filled scene, where you can visualize the effort the calf is putting up against the African boy. In the context of this painting, the African boy is the white counterpart in society, and the calf is the African American population. This is an absolutely important example of how, unlike other authors, Winslow does not depict the usual racial scene. Rather, he sets up many thought provoking relationships that allow us to think about life of post war African Americans. In this specific painting, it is evident that the societal relationships of African Americans and white Americans are damaged because of slavery before the war, but still humanity requires them to exist together in post war society.

It was not common to view the relationship of African Americans and their white counterparts as peaceful. Winslow Homer, however, challenges that African Americans can look over the harsh treatment they were handed before emancipation. Though Homer portrays racial issues, he puts the white boys and the African Americans in a strangely blissful harmony on a seemingly simple farm scene. From an unbiased perspective, assuming that racism and inequality were surpassed, it seems that slavery almost never happened. Homer brings this idea into the audience's head by correlating the peaceful bliss as stated above with the beauty of nature. The painting is filled entirely with naturalistic scenes, including trees with shade, a body of water in the back, a brightly lit sky, and other usual farm animals. Homer chooses to do this to show that the elegance of nature in its natural state can be associated with a peaceful societal relationship with African Americans. Also, the placement of the scene being on a farm is highly symbolic. Typically, African Americans would be the only ones on the farm during this era. Homer shows not only the African American, but what seems to be the entire white family to be working on the farm as well, bringing a family aspect to the portrait. Lastly, Homer articulates a warm feeling to the audience by using a color contrast scheme. He chooses to make the sky very bright with only a few clouds, the grass bright green, and vividly colored wildlife. If you ignore the African boy, it is a beautiful farm scene admiring nothing but the simplicity of nature. The reason this painting is completely intriguing is you cannot ignore the African boy, and must perceive them coexisting together.

Weaning the Calf may be viewed from two different perspectives. On one level, it is a painting of an unjust society treating African Americans poorly, while on a different level it is a painting of a beautiful rural scene where each individual exists together harmoniously. Homer however intended us to visualize these two together. The significance is that though inequality and slavery are now over, the struggle will never be forgotten. Secondly, the significance is that for the embetterment of human nature, racism must be overlooked and accepted. In the majority of paintings, there is an idea associated with a physical portion of the drawing. Here is an example associated African Americans and monkeys, which was also painted during the 1800s by Selz Schwab. It is obvious the the viewer that this painting is entirely racial, in contrast with Homers indirect method of portraying this.

Painted by Selz Schwab and Co.

Homer detaches the concrete emotional aspect of the painting by putting two very uncommon and seemingly incomparable ideas together. By doing so, he does not put a physical medium between the ideas he is portraying, but he chooses the medium to be an idea, which being blissful harmony among the races tied with the unforgettable ramifications of slavery. Homer chooses to articulate this using a method called Conceptual Contrast (Cray). This method consists of an “Idea Idea”, which is a medium containing the first idea, being the African boy fighting the calf, and a derivative idea, being nature, where the physical details are irrelevant to our understanding, but the presence aids us in the focusing of the overall idea. In other words, the physical painting of the boys watching the African boy wean the calf contains an idea of social inequality. The derivative idea is the scenery of the nature surrounding the boys. Without the beautiful nature, then we could not deduce a harmonious relationship between African Americans and the white boys, even though the actual physical details are completely irrelevant. Homer oversimplified so many different ideas into a single picture by using this method overall reflecting the tone of society in 1875.

It is fairly simple to identify the social context of Weaning the Calf, but Homer takes this one step further. The 1800s was a century of war over racial inequality. Due to the perfect timing that this was painted, Homer did not have to include a war scene as it was felt among the community. Homer closely associated war with racism because they were products of each other. Nature is simple and genuine, giving it a very peaceful vibe. Animals in nature do not have societal issues as do humans, they just live freely without intervention. Homer incorporates that nature is harmonious, peaceful, and blissful. A rural depiction of a farm brings these feelings into an easier perspective to understand by humans. We can understand relationships of man, but not always ones that exist outside of our spectrum. Weaning the Calf combines the peaceful vibes of nature with a lingering feeling of war in its absence, overall to create the tone during Emancipation. Remember that Homer was deeply fascinated with man’s relationship with wilderness. The ideas of man and war are placed directly next to nature and bliss because they not only are apparent, but they must exist together. Years of oppression will always be felt by African Americans, but society requires them to look past it. Homer ingeniously painted the entire societal context during the Reconstruction Era without once directly referencing it, overall giving Winslow Homer substantial credibility now and during the Reconstruction Era.

Works Cited

Cray, Wesley. "Conceptual Art, Ideas, and Ontology." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art
Criticism 72.3 (2014): 235-45. Wiley Online Library. The American Society for Aesthetics. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/doi/10.1111/jaac.12090/full


PMA. “Learn More About Winslow Homer.” Portland Museum of Art. Web. 30 Oct. 2014
http://www.portlandmuseum.org/homer/about-winslow-homer