#eight bells

[z34l0t]

[ltwilliammowett]

Eight Bells, by Winslow Homer, 1886

[cyrilfungus]

What I’ve Been Listening To- November/December

Whatever, this year sucked, a few highlights aside. But this last month really sucked, especially when I had to miss a couple of shows, and next year isn’t looking any better yet.

Eight Bells! One of my favorites from the year, this is solid doom, and I should check out more of their stuff.

Spirit World! This lives up to the title- death metal with western influences, and it’s a lot of fun. A recent new discovery.

Undeath! One show I had to miss earlier due to my illness, but I’ll get to see them in April maybe. Still, a really good death release, and I’m still hype.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Winslow Homer :: 8 Bells

* * * * On my Saturday layover in New York, I went, on Linda Rosdeitcher's recommendation, to see the Winslow Homer exhibition at the Met. A fabulous presentation with a number of works I had never seen before. I instantly fell in love with this painting, Eight Bells from 1886. It depicts two sailors determining their ship's latitude.

Eight Bells was the outgrowth of a series of oil paintings that Homer made using three wooden panels he found in the cabin of his brother's sloop at Prouts Neck, Maine. On two of the panels Homer painted scenes of mackerel fleets at Prouts Neck, one at dawn and the other at sunset; on the third he painted a grisaille study of the work that inspired Eight Bells, which depicted a ship's officer standing alone, taking an observation with an octant. Several years earlier, Homer had painted a watercolor on his voyage to England that also showed a sailor performing this activity. The painting's title is a reference to usage of the ship's bell on the watch system, computed as one strike every 30 minutes. Although "eight bells" can be either 8 o'clock, 12 o'clock, or 4 o'clock, the painting refers to taking the "noon sight" at local apparent noon, a standard during the days of celestial navigation. Sights are also taken at dawn or dusk.

More monumental than the three panels that preceded it, the two figures dominate the foreground of Eight Bells, and the details of the ship are minimally rendered. Homer shows the figure at left using an octant to take a reading of the sun, the other apparently reading the altitude of a completed sight on his octant. The moment is prosaic, yet it is presented as a heroic image. Eight Bells was painted the same year as another of Homer's major paintings, Undertow, both at a time when sales of the artist's work were slow, and he complained of "standing on one leg, one day, and another leg, some other day, and looking in vain for profits." The painting sold the following year, for the reportedly low price of $400 (approximately $11,000 today), and was the first oil painting Homer had sold in over three years. 

Nonetheless, Homer's disappointment in his inability to find buyers prompted him to stop painting in oils until 1890.

[h/t Scott Horton]

[colincliveforever]

Time, November 6, 1933

[theblackestofsuns]

“Eight Bells”

We Only Find Them When They’re Dead #5 (January 2021)

Al Ewing, Simone Di Meo and Mariasara Miotti

Boom! Studios

[simdaisies]

The 8 Bells bar from Strangerville, as it appears in an alternate universe.

This old building was made into a bar some years ago and has been serving the town since. This version includes a second floor which has been rented out to a tenant that has gone missing leaving all their stuff behind…

ĐØŴŇŁØΔĐ ΔŦ Μ¥ ŞƗŦ€  (no ads/adfly)

[creationfromnothingness]

Winslow Homer Eight Bells, 1886