Emerson, Ralph Waldo (sh) and Homer, Winslow (sh)

Emerson, Ralph Waldo (sh)

born May 25, 1803, Boston, Mass., U.S.
died April 27, 1882, Concord

U.S. poet, essayist, and lecturer.

Emerson graduated from Harvard University and was ordained a Unitarian minister in 1829. His questioning of traditional doctrine led him to resign the ministry three years later. He formulated his philosophy in Nature (1836); the book helped initiate New England Transcendentalism, a movement of which he soon became the leading exponent. In 1834 he moved to Concord, Mass., the Home of his friend Henry David Thoreau. His lectures on the proper role of the scholar and the waning of the Christian tradition caused considerable controversy. In 1840, with Margaret Fuller, he helped launch The Dial, a journal that provided an outlet for Transcendentalist ideas. He became internationally famous with his Essays (1841, 1844), including "Self-Reliance." Representative Men (1850) consists of biographies of historical figures. The Conduct of Life (1860), his most mature work, reveals a developed humanism and a full awareness of human limitations. His Poems (1847) and May-Day (1867) established his reputation as a major poet.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, lithograph by Leopold Grozelier, 1859

By courtesy of The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Homer, Winslow (sh)

born Feb. 24, 1836, Boston, Mass., U.S.
died Sept. 29, 1910, Prouts Neck, Maine

U.S. painter.

He served an apprenticeship with a Boston lithographer, then became a freelance illustrator in New York City. He exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1860 and was elected a member in 1865. During a stay in France in 1866, he was attracted to French naturalism and Japanese prints, but they had little effect on his generally bright and happy work. He became a master of watercolour and his ability as an oil painter matured; he focused increasingly on solitary, withdrawn figures. He spent 1881-82 in the English village of Tynemouth, on the North Sea, where the coastal atmosphere, the sea, and the stoic people are the subjects of some of his most powerful images. In 1883 he moved permanently to Prouts Neck, and his dominant theme became the sea and the endless struggle against an uncaring Nature. In his later years he continued to paint vigorously and in near-total isolation. Though he was recognized in his lifetime as a leading U.S. painter, appreciation of his enormous achievement came only after his death.

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