Winslow Homer, The Veteran in a New Field, 1865, oil on canvas, Bequest of Miss Adelaide Milton de Groot (1876-1967), 1967, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Reflecting on Veterans Day
The Civil War was barely over, when American master Winslow Homer (1836-1910) created The Veteran in a New Field above in 1865. In which a farmer, whose face is hidden from the viewer, has returned home from the destruction and death of the battlefield. His scythe in hand, performing the ritual of the harvest, rhythmically cutting the tall, yellow stalks of wheat that extend back into the horizon. Symbols of his fallen comrades, infinite in number, tragically lost but never forgotten.
Homer, as an artist-reporter for the publication Harper’s Weekly, had been to the front himself, recording the everyday lives of the Union soldiers: from leisurely hours spent around the camp fire to the intense moments of combat.
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