Laranjas em um Galho (Oranges on a Branch) - Winslow Homer

 

Laranjas em um Galho (Oranges on a Branch) - Winslow Homer
Coleção privada
OST - 34x49 - 1885


During the winter of 1884-85, Winslow Homer spent two months living in the Bahamas, producing a series of watercolors that document his time in Nassau. The resulting illustrations were reproduced in an article entitled “A Midwinter Resort” for Century Magazine, published in February of 1887. Oranges on a Branch is one of approximately thirty watercolors that emerged from this immensely productive period in Homer’s career. Vibrant and inviting, this subject epitomizes the tropical disposition that underscores Homer’s Bahamian pictures.
With his newly-widowed father, Charles, in tow as his travel companion, Homer arrived at the elegant Royal Victoria Hotel in Nassau, and quickly immersed himself in the local culture and ongoings of Bahamian life. The artist immediately found inspiration in the city's breathtaking color palette– the warm sunshine and clear blue sky cast remarkable light on the white limestone walls and lush tropical foliage. Although oranges were familiar to Homer from his life back in the states, the beautiful groves of orange trees ripe with fresh fruit was an exotic and inviting experience to the artist.
Oranges on a Branch is vivid in color, spontaneous in composition, and modern in its close-up approach to the subject matter. Five oranges effortlessly hang from a flowered tree, their forms overlapping with the lush leaves. Off in the distance at lower right, a white architectural structure contextualizes the piece, a testament to the artist’s dual interests in the vegetation and architecture of the island. “Vibrant color rivaled only by Homer’s strong design command’s the viewer’s attention,” art historian Marie Louden-Hanes said of this group of Bahamian watercolors (Marie Louden-Hanes, “Winslow Homer: The Move Toward Abstraction,” in Winslow Homer: An American Genius at the Parthenon, Nashville, 2000, p. 25). The present work is light-filled and dynamic, showcasing the artist’s mastery of the watercolor medium for which he is famed. His careful pencil outlines prepare the sheet for a meticulously-arranged presentation, in which the subject and the application of color rival one another for the composition’s leading force.
The present work is possibly a study for Orange Trees and Gate, also executed in 1885. Fresh to the market having resided in the Wolf Family Collection since 1984, Oranges on a Branch has excellent exhibition history, having been recently featured in the masterfully-curated Winslow Homer: Crosscurrents exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.