Happy Birthday, Winslow Homer

Homer, Adirondack Lake, 1892

A painter who begins and finishes indoors, that which is outdoors, misses a hundred little facts, a hundred little accidental effects of sunshine and shadow that can be reproduced only in the immediate presence of Nature. This making of studies and then taking them home is only half right. You get composition, but you lose freshness; you miss the subtle and, to the artist, the finer characteristics of the scene itself.

Winslow Homer, born on this day in 1836

Non-Conformist.

Homer, The Woodsman, 1889

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. It is not without pre-established harmony, this sculpture in the memory.

The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. Bravely let him speak the utmost syllable of his confession. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.

It needs a divine man to exhibit anything divine. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the Eternal was stirring at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny.

Whoso would be a man, must be a non-conformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall!

Ah, then, exclaim the aged ladies, you shall be sure to be misunderstood! Misunderstood! It is a right fool's word. Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, from Self-Reliance

Happy Birthday, Homer

Homer, Hunter in the Adirondacks, 1892

You have the sky overhead giving one light; then the reflected light from whatever reflects; then the direct light of the sun; so that, in the blending and suffusing of these several luminations, there is no such thing as a line to be seen anywhere.

Winslow Homer, born on this day in 1836

On.

Homer, Defiance, 1864

The BATTLE HYMN of the REPUBLIC

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;

He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:

His truth is marching on.

Chorus:

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:

His day is marching on.

Chorus

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:

“As ye deal with my condemners, so with you my grace shall deal;

Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,

Since God is marching on.”

Chorus

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:

Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!

Our God is marching on.

Chorus

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:

As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on.

Chorus

He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,

He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave,

So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,

Our God is marching on.

Chorus

Juila Ward Howe, published on this day in 1862

Dream.

Homer, The Pumpkin Patch, 1878

"Jack-o'-Lantern, Jack-o'-Lantern,

Tell me where you hide by day?"

"In the cradle where the vapours

Dream the sunlit hours away."

"Jack-o'-Lantern, Jack-o'-Lantern,

Who rekindles you at night?"

"Any firefly in the meadow

Lends a Jack-o'-Lantern light."

John B. Tabb

Strategy.

Homer, Eight Bells, 1886

Strategy will compensate the talent. The talent will never compensate the strategy.

Marco Pierre White

Culture eats strategy for breakfast.

Peter F. Drucker

It may be odd that, in such a strategic game, what you know can be truly inconsequential.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Into.

Now they made all secure in the fast black ship,

And, setting out the wine bowls all a-brim,

They made libation to the gods,

The undying, the ever-new,

Most of all to the grey-eyed daughter of Zeus.

And the prow sheared through the night into the dawn.

Homer, from The Odyssey

Happy Birthday, Homer

Homer, Trout Fishing, Lake St. John, Quebec, 1895

Winslow Homer was born on this day in 1836.

'Tis.

Homer, North Woods Club, Adirondacks (The Interrupted Tete-a-Tete), 1892

The UNSEEN PLAYMATE

When children are playing alone on the green,  
In comes the playmate that never was seen.  
When children are happy and lonely and good,  
The Friend of the Children comes out of the wood.  
  
Nobody heard him and nobody saw,         
His is a picture you never could draw,  
But he’s sure to be present, abroad or at home,  
When children are happy and playing alone.  
  
He lies in the laurels, he runs on the grass,  
He sings when you tinkle the musical glass;   
Whene’er you are happy and cannot tell why,  
The Friend of the Children is sure to be by!  
  
He loves to be little, he hates to be big,  
’Tis he that inhabits the caves that you dig;  
’Tis he when you play with your soldiers of tin   
That sides with the Frenchman and never can win.  
’Tis he, when at night you go off to your bed,  
Bids you go to your sleep and not trouble your head;  
For wherever they’re lying, in cupboard or shelf,  
’Tis he will take care of your playthings himself!

Robert Louis Stevenson

Scent.

Homer, Camp Fire, 1880

Beechwood fires are bright and clear

If the logs are kept a year,

Chestnut’s only good they say,

If for logs ’tis laid away.

Make a fire of Elder tree,

Death within your house will be;

But ash new or ash old,

Is fit for a queen with crown of gold.

Birch and fir logs burn too fast

Blaze up bright and do not last,

it is by the Irish said

Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread.

Elm wood burns like churchyard mould,

E’en the very flames are cold

But ash green or ash brown

Is fit for a queen with golden crown

Poplar gives a bitter smoke,

Fills your eyes and makes you choke,

Apple wood will scent your room

Pear wood smells like flowers in bloom

Oaken logs, if dry and old

keep away the winter’s cold

But ash wet or ash dry

a king shall warm his slippers by.

Lady Celia Congreve

Working.

Homer, Breezing Up (A Fair Wind), 1876

The child who has never learned to work by himself, to set goals for his own acts, or to be the master of his own force of will is recognizable in the adult who lets others guide his will and feels a constant need for approval of others.  The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist." 

Maria Montessori

Be.

Homer, Boys Wading, 1873

By not letting places be themselves we show our contempt for them. We bury them in sentiment, then suffocate them to death in one way or another. I can ruin both the desert and the Museum of Modern Art in New York by carrying to them an insufferable load of distinctions that disallows actually seeing the flora and fauna or the paintings. Children are usually better at finding mushrooms and arrowheads because they are either ignorant of or unwilling to carry the load.

Jim Harrison, from Dalva

Attentive.

Homer, Pond and Willows, Houghton Farm, 1878

The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.

Thich Nhat Hanh, from Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

Pursuit.

Homer, Eight Bells, 1886

Lawrence Yeo's Framework for Knowledge ...If you learn something for the first time, does that make you knowledgeable?

When we treat knowledge as a verb, it creates a process that separates what we know from the ever-changing quality of how we know it ...

The sharp division in our political systems, the inability to determine what is truthful in our news cycles, the animus toward dialogue amongst opposing viewpoints, the failure in aligning our ethical norms — these are all the illegitimate children of misplaced certainty. Our obsession with knowledge has gotten us here, but we’ve discarded the quality of its pursuit in the process.

Further ...

This is what education is all about. When you take the time to spread your findings to people, you simultaneously create the opportunity for a revision in your thought process as well. This is the root behind the adage of “teaching being the best form of learning.”

Happy Birthday, Homer

Homer, The Lone Boat, North Woods Club, Adirondacks,1892

A painter who begins and finishes indoors, that which is outdoors, misses a hundred little facts, a hundred little accidental effects of sunshine and shadow that can be reproduced only in the immediate presence of Nature. This making of studies and then taking them home is only half right. You get composition, but you lose freshness; you miss the subtle and, to the artist, the finer characteristics of the scene itself.

Winslow Homer, born on this day in 1836.

There.

Homer, Blown Away, 1888

POEM from THE IRON HEEL

“Joy upon joy and gain upon gain

Are the destined rights of my birth,

And I shout the praise of my endless days

To the echoing edge of the earth.

Though I suffer all deaths that a man can die

To the uttermost end of time,

I have deep-drained this, my cup of bliss,

In every age and clime—

“The froth of Pride, the tang of Power,

The sweet of Womanhood!

I drain the lees upon my knees,

For oh, the draught is good;

I drink to Life, I drink to Death,

And smack my lips with song,

For when I die, another ‘I’ shall pass the cup along.

“The man you drove from Eden’s grove

Was I, my Lord, was I,

And I shall be there when the earth and the air

Are rent from sea to sky;

For it is my world, my gorgeous world,

The world of my dearest woes,

From the first faint cry of the newborn

To the rack of the woman’s throes.

“Packed with the pulse of an unborn race,

Torn with a world’s desire,

The surging flood of my wild young blood

Would quench the judgment fire.

I am Man, Man, Man, from the tingling flesh

To the dust of my earthly goal,

From the nestling gloom of the pregnant womb

To the sheen of my naked soul.

Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh

The whole world leaps to my will,

And the unslaked thirst of an Eden cursed

Shall harrow the earth for its fill.

Almighty God, when I drain life’s glass

Of all its rainbow gleams,

The hapless plight of eternal night

Shall be none too long for my dreams.

“The man you drove from Eden’s grove

Was I, my Lord, was I,

And I shall be there when the earth and the air

Are rent from sea to sky;

For it is my world, my gorgeous world,

The world of my dear delight,

From the brightest gleam of the Arctic stream

To the dusk of my own love-night.”

Jack London

Bathed.

Homer, Summer Night (detail), 1890

The moon shines in the midst of the sky; the immeasurable vault of heaven seems to have expanded to infinity; the earth is bathed in silver light; the air is warm, voluptuous, and redolent of innumerable sweet scents. Divine night!

Nikolai Gogol

All's.

Homer, The Lookout – “All’s Well”, 1896

Happy New Year.

Solitude.

Homer, Adirondack Lake, 1892

It is a frightful satire and an epigram on the modern age that the only use it knows for solitude is to make it a punishment, a jail sentence.

Søren Kierkegaard

Calls.

Homer, Sandy Beach with Breakers, 1869

The tide rises, the tide falls,

The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;

Along the sea-sands damp and brown

The traveller hastens toward the town,

      And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,

But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;

The little waves, with their soft, white hands,

Efface the footprints in the sands,

      And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls

Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;

The day returns, but nevermore

Returns the traveller to the shore,

      And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow