Web Exclusive: Winslow Homer

"After the Hurricane, Bahamas" (1899). Watercolor with touches of reddish-brown gouache and traces of scraping, over graphite.

New X-ray studies indicate that after painting this scene with the shipwrecked subject’s hand slightly raised, to convey his survival, Homer scratched out the man’s elbow and hand and repainted them in a limp position, to heighten the sense of drama and uncertainty surrounding his fate as he lies unconscious on a white-sand beach.

Courtesy the Art Institute of Chicago