Elizabeth Johns
Visiting Fellow, Center for Religion,Ethics and Culture 

"Winslow Homer: The Nature of Observation."

Tuesday, October 23, 2001, 7:30 PM, Rehm Library in Smith Hall

Johns looks at this late 19th-century American realist painter through his understandings of observation and of nature.  She frames the analysis in the context of the psychosocial theories of human development first explored by Erik Erikson and elabored by Daniel Levinson and others.  In raising questions about Homer's personal investment in his images--from his early wood-engraved illustrations to his late paintings of the ocean at Prout's Neck, Maine--Johns looks at the dynamics of Homer's family of origin, his relationships and ambitions during his middle and late years, and the natural theology that underlay his paintings of the ocean.