Burnt Mountain
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.A hunter and his guide—perhaps the same subjects who appear in Bear Hunting, Prospect Rock, hanging nearby—pause for a moment of repose atop a granite ledge. Here, Homer isolates a section of the Adirondacks not far from his cabin at the North Woods Club, a private preserve near Minerva, New York. Known as Burnt Mountain, this particular slope gained its name from a forest fire that had raged in the area decades earlier. The skeletal roots of fallen trees appear silhouetted against an overcast sky. These dynamic compositional elements, coupled with the work’s title, belie the scene’s seeming tranquility, at once echoing and anticipating the turbulence of the rugged environment.
Artwork Details
- Title: Burnt Mountain
- Artist: Winslow Homer (American, Boston, Massachusetts 1836–1910 Prouts Neck, Maine)
- Date: 1892
- Culture: American
- Medium: Watercolor with graphite on wove paper
- Dimensions: Sheet: 13 15/16 in. × 20 in. (35.4 × 50.8 cm)
Framed: 17 1/2 in. x 22 in. (44.5 x 55.9 cm) - Credit Line: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller 3rd (1979.7.55)
- Rights and Reproduction: Photograph by Randy Dodson, courtesy Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
- Curatorial Department: The American Wing