Coast of Maine (1893): Artwork and History

Coast of Maine (1893) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Winslow Homer (American, 1836–1910).

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

Winslow Homer observed the shoreline in various weather conditions and seasons after moving to live in near isolation in Prouts Neck, Maine, in 1883. Amid the remote and dramatic landscape, he depicted seascapes void of human life, focusing instead on an emotional response to nature. His marine scenes are larger than his earlier works, the size of the canvases emphasize the vastness and power of the sea. Homer alluded to the violence of water through the sharply diagonal shoreline and vigorous brushwork. The flat areas of color that he employed to represent the rugged rocks simultaneously hint at abstraction.

Object facts

• Title: Coast of Maine
• Date: 1893
• Artist attribution: Winslow Homer (American, 1836–1910)
• Place of origin: United States
• Medium: Oil on canvas
• Dimensions: 61 × 76.2 cm (24 × 30 in.)
• Type: Painting
• Department: Arts of the Americas
• Reference number: 1931.505

Collection credit

Arthur Jerome Eddy Memorial Collection

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.