Croquet Scene

This is a small painting, about forty centimeters tall and sixty-six wide, or roughly sixteen by twenty-six inches. It was made in oil paint on canvas in 1866. It shows women and men playing a game of croquet outdoors, in the bright light of a summer afternoon. Winslow Homer painted the figures bathed in sunlight. As you look, notice the bold patterns, the strong contours, which means the clear outlines around the figures, and the brilliant light that gives the whole scene its glow.

Start with the crouching man. He is positioning a ball that belongs to the woman dressed in red. She is about to croquet another ball, which means she will strike it to send it away. Players called this sending it up the country. That ball probably belongs to the woman in the left foreground, in the front of the picture on the left. Look for her hand shielding her eyes against the bright afternoon sun. The game seems fairly advanced, well along in what players called the grand round.

Winslow Homer, an American painter, began his career as an illustrator during the Civil War. In the late 1860s he turned his sharp observational and technical skills toward oil painting. He often worked in series, and this is one of five paintings he completed on the subject of croquet. The sport was popular, and it had recently been introduced to the United States from the British Isles. In these early paintings he showed figures bathed in sunlight out of doors.

Homer's early paintings of this kind show upper-class leisure pursuits. Croquet was a popular new sport in which women and men competed with one another, and it suited his interest in figures outdoors. The painting is seen as epitomizing the spirit of a breezy summer afternoon, which means it sums up that feeling perfectly. Before you move on, look once more at the woman on the left who shields her eyes. That small gesture lets you feel how strong the sunlight is across the whole scene.