Winslow Homer was sentimental, and that’s a good thing

Sebastian Smee | Press Herald | 10th September 2019

Rehabilitating sentimentality. Modernism brought the view that art should be individual and tough. It was not always thus. Nineteenth century artists like Winslow Homer strived for sentimentality and its constituent emotions like compassion, affection, patriotism. Says one  writer, such emotions provide “a sense of connectedness to others and to place. [T]he sentimental is at the core of much of the art we admire and enjoy the most”.