Leaping Trout

A trout bursts clear of the river, caught in mid-air in a spray of water and light. Winslow Homer painted the sheet in 1889, in the years he spent summering in the Adirondacks and on the rivers of Canada where fishing became his favourite subject. In watercolor over graphite he caught the instant of the catch with a bold, wet-on-wet freedom that anticipated his late marine watercolors, turning a fisherman’s commonplace moment into a study of light and motion.