Searchlight on Harbor Entrance, Santiago de Cuba

Winslow Homer

1902 · Oil on canvas · The American Wing

Homer revisited his 1885 drawings of Morro Castle following the 1898 Spanish-Cuban-American War. In the resulting canvas, he focused on an electric searchlight used by the U.S. Navy to prevent the Spanish fleet from escaping Santiago harbor until they could be defeated. The artist offers a striking juxtaposition between the dim, antiquated cannons of the Spanish monument and the searchlight’s powerful rays. Framing the conflict in symbolic, disembodied terms, Homer perhaps implied a sense of U.S. technological superiority and imperial ascendancy. Meanwhile, only a small section of Cuban shoreline is illuminated at right, reflecting the ways the colonial power struggle eclipsed what had been a long, local fight for independence. Homer’s modern history painting appears to brood on these unequal power dynamics without offering a clear resolution.

Artist

Winslow Homer

Date

1902

Medium

Oil on canvas

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Gift of George A. Hearn, 1906