Artwork · 19th century · Winslow Homer

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Fire-Works on the Night of the Fourth of July (from "Harper's Weekly," Vol. XII)

Winslow HomerJuly 11, 1868Wood engraving23.2 × 34.9 cm

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At a glance

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A packed crowd stares up at fireworks on the night of the Fourth of July, in a wood engraving.
Winslow Homer made the drawing, and it was printed in the magazine Harper's Weekly on July 11, 1868.
Dozens of faces fill the front of the picture, each with its own expression, so it rewards a slow, face-by-face look.

Reading the picture

5 places to look closer

Tap a number on the painting to jump to its note, or a close-up to see that spot in the whole picture.

Zoom in on the night sky at the upper right. White arcs curve across the black sky, and little sparks rain down. In a wood engraving, every white mark is a spot where wood was cut away. Each spark was carved out with a blade.
Look at the top hat on the right. The pointed end of a long stick has punched right through its crown. Follow the stick upward and it leads back toward the fireworks in the sky. The man under the hat doesn't seem to notice. His mouth just hangs open.
Zoom in on the boy right of center. His eyes have gone round, and his jaw has dropped. The man beside him rests a finger on his chin, and his mouth is open too. Two startled faces sit side by side, caught in the same instant.
Look at the young woman at the bottom center. Her chin is lifted as she gazes at the sky. Even her headband and the beads of her necklace are cut in fine lines. Her face is left almost bare and white, while her hair is filled with dense lines, so her face seems to catch the glow of the night.
Zoom in on the bald gentleman at the lower right. He wears round glasses that pinch onto his nose, with a thin cord hanging down from them. Under a thick mustache his mouth is pressed shut. Nearly everyone is looking up, but he has turned his head to the side.

When it was painted

In the summer of 1868, Homer was thirty-two. He had come home from about ten months in France the year before. Back in New York, he was painting in oil and paying his way with magazine work. This print ran in Harper's Weekly, volume twelve, on July 11 of that year.

By then Homer had been drawing for magazines for more than a decade. Starting in 1857, he worked as a freelance illustrator for Harper's Weekly. During the Civil War he went to the front and sent back scenes of soldiers' daily lives.

A print like this was not made by the artist alone. Homer supplied the drawing, and skilled engravers at the magazine cut the wooden blocks used for printing. So the knife marks you see here came from the engravers' hands, not from Homer's.

Homer kept drawing for Harper's Weekly until 1875. Around 1873 he took up watercolor, and when his watercolors found buyers, he gave up freelance illustration by 1875. From then on he put his energy into painting.

This single sheet entered the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1938. A page that once came off a printing press for magazine readers is now kept in the museum's department of drawings and prints.

Look again at the white fireworks at the upper right. The light that pulled this whole crowd together survives as thin cuts in a block of wood.

The painter

Winslow Homer

1836–1910

All paintings by Winslow Homer →

More by the same painter

Croquet Scene1866

The Herring Net1885

Questions to think about

Look for itHow many people in the crowd can you find who are looking somewhere other than the sky?
Why?Why do you think Homer gave most of the picture to the faces watching the fireworks, rather than to the fireworks themselves?
What about you?At fireworks shows today, many people watch through their phone screens instead of looking at the sky. Which stays with you longer, seeing the night with your own eyes or saving it as a photo?

Same period