March 15, 2026
The Big Dead-Fish Clean-Up
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Nature Done Wright
Incorporating the Celery Farm and Screech Owl Companion blogs
December 14, 2011
The Fox and the Crows
The painting above, "Fox Hunt" by Winslow Homer, has always been a favorite — even before I moved to the Celery Farm and had Red Foxes for neighbors. Last weekend, I saw the painting in person in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and was even more impressed. The composition, the colors, the artistry really came through.
One thing troubled me, though — the description of the painting, which read, "Homer dramatized the brutal realities of winter on the Maine coast by showing a fox desperately bounding through deep snow in an attempt to flee a flock of half-starved crows. The birds descend ominously with outstretched wings, forming a dark hovering mass above the struggling fox."
I see it quite differently, with a Celery Farm perspective. The fox looks quite healthy to me, and it's not struggling. It is hunting for its next meal. The crows are mobbing the fox to warn other critters that danger is near — something I have seen and heard at the CF.
What do you think?
2 comments
-
I agree, Jim.
Literary&/or artist’s license? -
Jim,
You’re right. The writers of the art description are wrong.
Perhaps they are desk-loving overly dramatic types? Also some people are irrationally afraid of big black birds and see “death” every time one flys over.
I also don’t think the caption writers were at all reflecting Winslow Homer’s views, since he was intimately familiar with the natural world: Am remembering particularly WH’s sketches/watercolors of trout streams and those Atlantic coast scenes during raging storms.
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2 comments
sally
I agree, Jim.
Literary&/or artist’s license?
John Workman
Jim,
You’re right. The writers of the art description are wrong.
Perhaps they are desk-loving overly dramatic types? Also some people are irrationally afraid of big black birds and see “death” every time one flys over.
I also don’t think the caption writers were at all reflecting Winslow Homer’s views, since he was intimately familiar with the natural world: Am remembering particularly WH’s sketches/watercolors of trout streams and those Atlantic coast scenes during raging storms.