Right and Left

Winslow Homer

National Gallery of Art

We look onto two black-headed ducks twisting and flailing midair against a slate-gray landscape in this horizontal painting. The silvery white body of the bird to our left faces us as its neck twists to our left, its black wings extended. The bird to our right falls with its head facing down, its gray wings partially contracted and its legs splayed. The landscape behind them is made up of a sliver of golden amber along the top edge above three wider bands of steel gray that darken toward the bottom of the canvas. A spray of turquoise near the bottom center of the painting indicates that the gray bands are cresting waves. Seen in the distance beyond the feet of the left bird, a gray smudge suggests smoke obscuring a man wearing a gray garment and vivid orange cap. His elbows are raised, presumably holding a shotgun. He sits in a long brown canoe that rides near the crest of the middle wave.