America / 1864
The Brierwood Pipe
The Cleveland Museum of Art catalogs The Brierwood Pipe as painting (America · 1864).
During the Civil War, Homer worked as an artist-reporter for the New York newspaper Harper's Weekly .
A CLOSER LOOK
The museum identifies this painting as oil on canvas and credits Winslow Homer (American, 1836–1910).
The museum's collection notes: Created during the United States Civil War, Winslow Homer’s painting depicts two volunteers for the Union Army who sport their regiment’s highly colorful uniforms, a design discovered to be impractical due to its ability to be spotted by sharpshooters. Passing idle time in their encampment, one soldier holds a lit pipe and watches his companion whittle a block of wood. The painting shares its title with a contemporary poem, in which a soldier smokes a brierwood pipe and daydreams of the time when the conflict will end so he can return home. The museum acquired this painting during World War II, and it seems likely that the painting’s subject
FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE
The Cleveland Museum of ArtThe Brierwood PipeOriginal explanation based on the sources above. Images carry their own reuse terms.