The Rapids, Hudson River, Adirondacks

The Rapids, Hudson River, Adirondacks — Winslow Homer. 1894.

Medium: Transparent watercolor, with traces of opaque watercolor, blotting, and scraping, over graphite, on thick, rough-textured, ivory wove paper. Dimensions: 38.4 × 54.6 cm (15 1/8 × 21 1/2 in.).

Collection record: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.

By the time Homer first began visiting the Adirondacks in the 1870s, commercial logging operations in the region were beginning to destroy large tracts of forest and to clog the rivers. He acutely observed and recorded these events in his watercolors, rarely passing explicit judgment. In The Rapids, Hudson River, Adirondacks , the artist combined themes of fishing and logging. On first encounter, this watercolor is peaceful and intimate, a virtuoso study of the movement of the river’s surface over partially submerged rocks. Long, painterly strokes of black watercolor over layers of blue describe the depth and speed of the water, while areas of bright white paper have been revealed by scraping to indicate the bubbling froth of whitewater rapids. It is only along the far bank that one becomes aware of the presence of man in this tranquil landscape, implied by the clean-cut logs lying haphazardly along the rocky bank. Even more subtle is Homer’s suggestion of a fisherman’s presence, indicated by the leaping fish at river’s edge, where the artist used his knife blade to sketch the serpentine motion of a fishing line in mid-cast. The fisherman is invisible, yet we are made to understand that the presence of human beings alters nature profoundly.

Description: © Art Institute of Chicago, original record, CC BY 4.0. HTML formatting removed; wording retained. Other artwork metadata: CC0.

Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.