Winslow Homer, Natural Bridge, Bermuda, ca. 1901, watercolor and graphite on white wove paper, Amerlia B. Lazarus Fund, 1910, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Title: Natural Bridge, Bermuda, c. 1901
Artist: Winslow Homer (1836-1910)
Natural Bridge, Bermuda was composed when American master Winslow Homer was in his early sixties. Although he resided mainly in Prout’s Neck, Maine, he often spent most of the winter in Bermuda, Nassau, and the Bahamas as well as Florida in the last decades of his life. During these stays in the Caribbean, Homer created some of his most original and captivating watercolors.
Here the Caribbean Sea, like sapphire glass, stretches beyond the horizon where it meets the waiting sky. So transparent and smooth, we might effortlessly glide across the watery surface in the luminous light of a tropical noon.
Natural Bridge juts just beneath, formed by a miracle of nature, not of man. In fact, Homer seems to have overlooked his fellow humans. Or has he? For near the end of the remarkable ledge, one lone British soldier (a dash of red marking his coat) can be seen.
In the public domain. As part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify, and distribute this image even for commercial purposes.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art does not endorse or approve use of the above image or any of the material on this website. Nor has the Metropolitan Museum of Art participated in any projects utilizing the said image.
