1. Regionalism & Realism American Art & Literature Civil War – World War Winslow Homer

2. The Civil War changed more than politics in America. After the Civil War, people weren’t much interested in reading about the war hero. They had seen the brutality and mental distress.

3. They had lived the filthy outdoor life and experienced the sheer boredom of war. Winslow Homer People who had lived the real thing couldn’t stomach the the overactive imaginations of writers who had lived their lives behind desks.

4. All that moping about the eerie and the mysterious went right out the window.

5. Winslow Homer Before and during the Civil War, people didn’t talk or read much about different regions of the country. Our troubles were firmly rooted in The North, the South, and what to do with the West.

6. After, with regional tensions gone, people wanted to read about different places around the country. Since they were interested in different regions, this was called Regionalism.

7. Winslow Homer Southerners read about the North, and Northerners read about the South.

8. But the favorite of many people was the West.

9. New Lands were opening up and people were headed out there. Folks back East loved to read about it.

10. The excitement and action of the Western hero appealed to many. Frederick Remington

12. The Romantics portrayed Natives’ lives as exciting and exotic, and the hardships were downplayed. Because they lived more closely to Nature, Romantics assumed they would have been more honest and pure.

13. With the Realists, stories about Native Americans spotlight the hardships. The stories are often true ones. Frederick Remington

14. The experiences of Euro-Americans with the Natives are often no longer the Romanticized buddy-buddy relationships Natty Bumpoo had. Frederick Remington

15. People still liked to read about characters experiencing Nature. Frederick Remington

16. But this fairy-tale awe-inspiring Nature was gone (until the 1960’s anyway….).

17. Nature still dominated characters, but unlike this Romantic image…

18. Winslow Homer The Realists saw Nature as an overwhelming, destructive, and impersonal force.

19. Winslow Homer Romantics saw the individual as powerful, but the Realists had seen the foolish or the unlucky find themselves at the mercy of nature.

20. Sharks surround him, and a waterspout looms in the background. The boat - a human creation - is useless. The mast and rudder are broken and gone. Winslow Homer

21. Overall, the Realists found the World a much harder place than the optimistic Romantics. Winslow Homer