Visualizing History: “A Post-slavery Encounter”

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A Visit from the Old Mistress, 1876 SOURCE: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC/Art Resource, NY.

Winslow Homer (1836–1910) is regarded by many as the nation’s greatest nineteenth-century painter. He typically sketched and painted ordinary people in their everyday lives, and he was admired for his ability to convey drama and emotion on canvas. During the Civil War, Homer worked as an illustrator for Harper’s Weekly, depicting scenes of the war for curious Northerners. In 1875, he traveled from his home in New York City to Virginia, where he observed firsthand the transformation of relationships between former slaves and their former owners. He composed A Visit from the Old Mistress from sketches he had made while traveling through Virginia.

In this painting, Homer captures the moment when a white woman arrives in the humble cabin of former slaves and encounters three black women, one of whom holds a toddler. Homer typically said little about his paintings, and there is much we don’t know about the story being told in this work. Why has the old mistress come? We can imagine that she has come to talk about work she wants done in the big house. If so, she would have come asking, not commanding, for the end of slavery meant that ex-slaves had control over their own labor and negotiated what they would be paid and the conditions under which they would work.

Notice the way Homer has arranged the subjects of his painting, with the former slaves on one side of the room and the former mistress on the other. What does the generous space between them suggest? How do the two sides compare? Look particularly at the women’s clothing and their stance. What does the white woman’s posture suggest? How are the three black women positioned, and what does this say about their attitude toward the old mistress? What do you detect in the facial expressions of the people in this image?

The end of slavery required wrenching readjustments in the lives of Southerners, black and white. Homer has captured a tense moment in that transition.

SOURCE: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC/Art Resource, NY.

Questions for Analysis

  1. How would you describe the conditions of these former slaves? Have they improved since emancipation?
  2. White southerners often claimed that their slaves loved them. Do you see any signs of affection or loyalty in these black women for their former owner?
  3. Do you think that this domestic scene reveals the artist’s opinion about what he witnessed, or does A Visit from the Old Mistress try merely to capture truthfully a complex scene?

Connect to the Big Idea

How might this painting have looked differently if it had been created before emancipation? (See chapters 13 and 15.)