An American Thanksgiving, Skewered and Roasted - Nov 24,1860

[proud2BlibKansan]

Winslow Homer’s editors asked him for an illustration to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday that week. They may have gotten more than they’d bargained for.

Just 24 years old, the artist had been contributing to pictorial magazines since he was barely out of his teens, quickly graduating to the pages of Harper’s Weekly, the most popular such publication in the country. Most of his work so far had been fairly conventional and commercial: portraits of political celebrities, sentimental Christmas scenes, depictions of the upper class taking its leisure on the beaches of Newport and the bridle paths of Central Park.

Occasionally, however – like slips of the woodcut engraver’s chisel – hints of something harder and sharper-edged had found their way into Homer’s prints. Two Thanksgivings ago he had shown turkeys being caught, slaughtered and plucked – and slyly arranged his composition to give viewers the point of view of one of the turkeys.

But the double-page centerfold that he prepared for Thanksgiving Day 1860 is about as subtle as the slash of a cavalry saber. “THANKSGIVING DAY, 1860 – THE TWO GREAT CLASSES OF SOCIETY,” Homer titled the engraving. The spread is divided into two halves: on the left, “Those who have more Dinners than appetite,” and on the right, “Those who have more appetite than Dinners.”

more . . . http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/an-american-thanksgiving-skewered-and-roasted/?hp