The Dinner Horn (Blowing the Horn at Seaside)

Winslow Homer

National Gallery of Art

Facing away from us, a light-skinned woman blowing a silver horn stands in a grassy landscape in this vertical painting. The woman is lit brightly from the upper right, making her ankle-length, white dress glow. The sleeves are rolled back to her elbows, and a black ribbon fastens her blond hair in a net. We see the right edge of her cheekbone, and her skin is smooth and pale. She holds the horn up with her right hand and plants the back of her other hand on her hip. She stands with her heels together, wearing black boots. A strong wind from our right lifts and twists the hem of her dress and the thin ties at her waist. She stands on a patch of dirt within a leaf-strewn, grassy lawn. The edge of a building with wooden siding, presumably a house, runs parallel to the left edge of the painting. A vine grows up the corner of the house, and the very edge of a window frame is seen along the left side. At the corner of the house, two plants grow in pots, and an overturned, metal jug leans against the wall. An expanse of bright green grass stretches in front of the young woman. The land dips and rises a short distance away. A reddish-brown cow lies in the field beyond as black and white chickens peck the grass. The dark green canopies of trees growing to our left fill the top third of the painting. In the deep distance, a few dots of paint indicate people wearing white and red, working on a strip of brown land. One man works a plow pulled by a brown horse. A mounded, golden haystack sits farther back in that field. A strip of blue along the horizon could be water or distant hills. The turquoise sky above peeks through the canopies of the trees. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower left corner, “WINSLOW HOMER. 1870.”