Review: Plunging Into Watery Worlds
Two exhibitions, 'Of Light and Air: Winslow Homer in Watercolor' and 'American Landscapes in Watercolor From the Corcoran Collection,' offer glimmering views of the medium's history.

Boston

How lucky is the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. It owns the largest collection of watercolors by Winslow Homer (1836-1910) in the world. And as Homer famously said, "You will see, in the future, I will live by my watercolors."

Visitors to the MFA through Jan. 19, 2026, are also lucky: They can view nearly 50 of these treasures, dated from 1847 to 1904, along with some oils, prints, borrowed watercolors, and other materials, in "Of Light and Air: Winslow Homer in Watercolor." Vulnerable to damage from light, humidity and other dangers, MFA's watercolors have not been on view together for almost a half century; some have not been seen at all in decades. "Of Light and Air" is a not-to-be-missed occasion.

The Blue Boat

It opens with "The Blue Boat" (1892), a stunning work. With its blue sky; puffy clouds, whitened at the top by sunlight; trees and grasses limned in spare, confident strokes; a central hunter clothed in contrasting autumnal colors, and subtle reflections in the blue water, it's sheer perfection—a prime example of why Homer is arguably America's greatest watercolorist. By using bold but looser brush strokes, striving to capture fleeting moments and atmosphere, and tackling ambitious subjects in what had been considered a secondary medium, Homer changed the practice and prestige of watercolor in America.

Woodman and Fallen Tree

"The Blue Boat" is surrounded by other, only slightly less dazzling watercolors, like "Woodsman and Fallen Tree" (1891), an austere, dramatic work, and "Girls on a Cliff" (1881), softer in tone, with a hint of motion in the grasses. Homer rewards close lookers with marvelous touches created by many techniques, from over-drawing and layering of paints, both translucent and opaque, to dry brush application and paint-scraping—didactics in this gallery explain them. From here, the exhibition, curated by Ethan Lasser, chair of the museum's Art of the Americas department, and Christina Michelon, curator of Prints and Drawings, proceeds both chronologically and geographically.

Homer started as just a boy. Encouraged by his mother, Henrietta (an accomplished watercolorist who is represented here by three nature studies), he created works like "Farm Scene" (1847). It's competent, but muddy, evidence that Homer did not yet understand how to use watercolors.

Three Boys on a Beached Dory

His next years were filled with illustration. At age 17, Homer was apprenticed to a Boston lithographer, where he practiced his draftsmanship and learned about composition, process and business. Then he worked as a freelance illustrator, contributing drawings to popular magazines, especially Harper's Weekly, which sent him to the front lines of the Civil War. His ink-wash eyewitness accounts were widely printed and engraved, and might be termed his first watercolors as an adult.

Detail-Girls on a Cliff

Yet as the Civil War wound down, Homer successfully turned to oil paintings. Like other period artists, he produced soothing, nostalgic narrative works, like his "Long Branch, New Jersey" (1869), which suggests a leisurely seaside outing; "The Dinner Horn" (c. 1870), a small, harmonious rural scene he painted a few times; and "Boys in a Pasture" (1874), which romanticizes childhood, play and the outdoors.

Detail-Girl on a Swing

Around 1870, as watercolors were gaining in status as a separate, prestigious medium, Homer took up watercolors again. In some attempts—such as "Bo-Peep" (Girl With Shepherd's Crook Seated by a Tree)," from 1878—he still layered too many pigments one upon another, like oils, instead of taking advantage of the translucency and fluidity of water-based paints.

But in the summer of 1873, which he spent in Gloucester, Mass., Homer had created his first series of watercolors, the seed of his virtuosity. MFA's example from that summer, "Three Boys on a Beached Dory," is a charming grisaille work depicting the children, wearing broad-brimmed hats, looking at sailboats on the horizon. In "Boy in a Boatyard" (1873), a borrowed work of a barefoot child lost in thought, Homer sometimes layers paints, but also takes advantage of watercolor qualities. Critics perked up, praising Homer's "individual way of looking," according to a wall label.

An Afterglow

Homer found inspiration in many locations, and "Of Light and Air" follows him from Gloucester to Quebec; from coastal England to Prouts Neck, Maine; from Florida and the Caribbean to the Adirondacks. Everywhere, he recorded the differences in regional "light and air"—a cooler palette for the north, as in "The Dory" (1887) fishing scene; sunnier colors for the south, as in "The Sponge Diver" (1898-99), a striking view of a black man in a deep-blue sea.

He painted these images quickly, aiming to capture a moment (later tinkering if needed). The surge in "Breaking Wave (Prouts Neck)," from 1887—the last in the show—would be gone an instant later. Poignantly, it is juxtaposed with "Driftwood" (1909), Homer's final oil painting. Despite his own verdict, both mediums would bring him lasting, well-deserved, renown.

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Washington

Is it any wonder then that the poster image for "American Landscapes in Watercolor From the Corcoran Collection," at the National Gallery of Art through Feb. 1, 2026, is by Winslow Homer? His "Hudson River, Logging" (1891-92) is nearly as stellar as "The Blue Boat." Homer's bravado strokes of bold colors, with highlights in white, create a sparkling vision of two men in the great outdoors.

Walter Paris's "David Burns's Cottage and the Washington Monument"

Most of the 30 images in this show have also been off view—for 30 years or more—and most are drawn from the 1,400 works on paper that the National Gallery acquired after the Corcoran Gallery of Art closed in 2014 (along with 7,600 other artworks). As her focus, Amy R. Johnston, an associate curator at the NGA, zeroed in on landscapes, which are a strength of the Corcoran's collection. But she went wide, selecting works dated from 1800 to 1991, in several styles and techniques, depicting the wilderness, the pastoral and the urban.

The earliest examples are more interesting historically than aesthetically. "Falls of the Potomac" (1800-10) by William Russell Birch and "Harpers Ferry From Below" (1825-27) by Thomas Doughty provide looks at the countryside in its early days. "View of the North River From the North West Corner of Fort Clinton—West Point" (1837) and "Constitution Island and Foundry from West Point, New York" (c. 1837) are the work of Seth Eastman, an artist-soldier who taught drawing to West Point cadets learning cartography. Walter Paris's "David Burns's Cottage and the Washington Monument" (1892) illustrates the obstinacy of the farmer who owned the land now occupied by the White House; he sold it—eventually—after George Washington himself negotiated, but he and his family kept the cottage for decades.

South-West Point, Conanicut

The most distinctive artwork in the show is the largest, almost 5 feet across. Looking up, William Trost Richards painted the cold, rocky waters in "South-West Point, Conanicut" (1878/1879) before a massive cliff made of arrowhead-sharp rocks. Near the top of this bleak scene, there's a peek at the lifting mist and emerging blue sky. Richards intended his piece, painted on rough paper, to look like an oil, and it does.

"American Landscapes" offers much more: a John Marin marine abstraction, "Flint Isle, Maine—No. 1" (1947) hung near George Henry Smillie's realistic "Seal Harbor, Mount Desert" (c. 1893); Alma Thomas's verdant "Winter Shadows" (c. 1960); frolicking deer in "Landscape With Deer, North Carolina" (c. 1820) by Joshua Shaw; and three fluid works, dated 1988 and 1991, by Donald Holden, who painted wet-on-wet from memory.

While just a sampling, the show whets one's appetite. It suggests the need for a dedicated space for rotating displays of the Corcoran's paper treasures.