Boys Wading

Winslow Homer

National Gallery of Art

Two pale-skinned boys with their pants rolled up stand knee-deep in crystal-blue water in this horizontal watercolor on paper. Gray pebbles are scattered across a stretch of peachy-tan sand along the bottom of the sheet. Water ripples gently across a channel to a sailboat docked in front of dark gray warehouses and a brown building lining a pier. The boat is robin’s egg blue with a navy stripe across its center. In the distance to our right, two cranes for loading cargo are silhouetted against the pale blue sky that spans the top fifth of the composition. Near the beach, the two boys plant on their fists on their knees to peer down into the water. One boy stands with his back to us in the center of the composition. The other is to our left. He stoops, facing our right in profile. Both wear brimmed hats, long-sleeved shirts, and the boy on our left wears a vest in tones of peanut brown, cream and bright white, straw yellow, and nickel gray. Strokes of opaque white and sparkling blue sweep across the water so the texture of the paper shows through. The artist signed and dated the watercolor in the lower right: “W HOMER 1873.”