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Course: The Seeing America Project > Unit 8
Lesson 3: 1870-now- Winslow Homer, Taking Sunflower to Teacher
- Harry Fonseca, Two Coyotes with Flags
- When department stores were new: women in the American city
- Hale Woodruff, The Banjo Player
- A beacon of hope, Aaron Douglas's Aspiration
- Vertis Hayes, The Lynchers
- Thelma Streat, Girl with Bird
- Beauford Delaney's portrait of Marian Anderson
- Barbara Zucker, Mix, Stir, Pour (White Floor Piece)
- Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Cleaning the museum—maintenance art
- Ben Shahn, Contemporary American Sculpture
- Kerry James Marshall, Our Town
- Stefanie Jackson, Bluest Eye
- Amy Sherald, Precious Jewels by the Sea
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Winslow Homer, Taking Sunflower to Teacher
Winslow Homer's watercolor, "Taking Sunflower to Teacher," captures the hopeful transformation of African Americans post-Civil War. The painting symbolizes the potential for growth and change, reflecting the era's fight for equal rights and education. The image is a poignant reminder of the struggle and the promise of a brighter future. Created by Smarthistory.
Video transcript
(bright music) - [Beth] We're in the
Georgia Museum of Art looking at a small watercolor by the American painter, Winslow Homer, called "Taking Sunflower to Teacher". It dates to 1875 so we're in the last
years of reconstruction. - [Jeffrey] Beginning in 1867 with the passage of
the Reconstruction Act, the federal government is
trying to reform and reconstruct the American South following
the end of the Civil War and the dismantling of
the American Confederacy. - [Beth] And so, we have
all of these attempts by the federal government to ensure the rights of
formerly enslaved people. - [Jeffrey] The government
is passing amendments to the constitution to ensure the rights of newly
freed African Americans, especially in the South. You have the 13th Amendment, which is the abolition of slavery, the 14th, which provides equal protection under the law to all citizens
of the United States, and essentially establishes
citizenship for this population. And then, the 15th Amendment, which provides voting
rights to all male citizens, so now male African Americans can vote. Homer here is creating a picture that attempts to portray
this new potential for African Americans in this country. So you have this boy with this sunflower that he's bringing to his teacher, he's pictured him in
these tattered clothes which are a way of showing his
poverty, his marginalization, this former self that he,
through his education, has the potential to transcend, and it's that butterfly that
touches down on his shoulder which is a symbol of metamorphosis, of this potential to transform. - [Beth] And I think Homer
expresses all of that potential so beautifully in the painting. The figure looks slightly downward, he folds his hands in front of his body, and he looks uncertain almost as though he's looking toward his future, but not sure what it will bring. And the symbolism of the
sunflower, this idea of blossoming, of opening, of following the
sun, of growth and development, the butterfly, this
idea of transformation, of a figure whose life is
beginning and opening up. - [Jeffrey] This boy is crossing his arms. He's not crossing it in the
typical way you would expect. It's almost as if his hands
are crossed at his wrists which references this past of shackles, of bondage, of imprisonment in slavery. Now the wrists are crossed,
but without chains. - [Beth] It is somewhat patronizing, but it's also very sympathetic, and Homer avoids any of the stereotypes that were so common in
imagery of the time. - [Jeffrey] It is a
very humanizing picture. It shows a psychological complexity, and I think that dignity that he gives to this subject is quite different from the caricature of African
Americans in this period. - [Beth] What this watercolor does though is suggest a very bright future. But we know that during this
period, access to education, access to voting, to the
rights of citizenship had to be enacted by
the federal government, they were not things that came easily or naturally to the South. - [Jeffrey] You have
African American communities who are taking up the project
of education for themselves and taxing their own communities to establish schoolhouses
and to employ teachers and to afford themselves the
possibilities of education. And yet, local governments
and state governments are directly opposing those efforts, whether that's through judicial means or through vigilante violence
and self-enacted justice. - [Beth] It is such a sentimental image. It's hard to look at
this and not think about how sweet he looks and to feel sympathy. - [Jeffrey] It's a
culture of sentimentality, especially in relation to slavery and the cause of abolition. And you think of people
like Harriet Beecher Stowe and "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and how this literary
tradition of sentimentality is at once dignifying and
humanizing, but is also a strategy for the cause of abolition in the North. - [Beth] I think the reference
to "Uncle Tom's Cabin" to Harriet Beecher Stowe
was a really good one. This idea of using sentimentality to support the cause of
abolition and emancipation. (bright music)