Right and Left

Winslow Homer painted Right and Left in 1909, the year before he died. It is his last painting, and it shows two goldeneye ducks at the moment a hunter's shotgun blast hits them. Two ducks are caught in midair against a dark, churning sea. The lower duck is falling, its body twisted by the impact. The upper duck is still in flight, wings spread, but the blast is reaching it. The water below is rough, painted in greens and greys. The sky is a low, grey mass. The canvas is roughly 28 by 48 inches, landscape format. The painting is fast and violent, with the birds rendered in quick, sure strokes. Homer was 73 in 1909. He had been living alone at Prouts Neck, Maine, for over twenty years, painting the sea and the coast. His late paintings are blunt and physical, concerned with the force of waves, the weight of fish, and the moment of death. Right and Left is the most concentrated of these late works. American painting of the early 1900s was moving toward urban subjects and Ashcan School realism. Homer was outside all of that, painting the Maine coast with an intensity that had no parallel in American art. His late sea paintings are closer to the force of nature than to any movement or school. Oil on canvas, 71 by 122 centimeters. Homer painted with a restricted palette and a direct approach. The ducks are built in quick strokes of brown, black, and white. The sea is painted in broader marks, with the foam suggested by flecks of white. The composition is tight: the birds fill the center, the water fills the bottom, the sky fills the top. This painting works in a living room, study, or cabin. The greys and browns suit a room with natural wood, stone, or weathered surfaces. The 18x24 size gives the birds and the sea enough room. The horizontal format works well above a sofa or a console table. The painting is in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, a gift of the Avalon Foundation. This is a public domain artwork, sourced from Wikimedia Commons. We print it on archival matte paper at sizes from 8x10 to 24x36 inches, framed or unframed. The image is printed at full resolution with no cropping.