Shipwreck! Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibits 19th-century
rescue scenes Shipwreck! Winslow Homer and ‘The Life Line’ is on
view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Dec. 16.
PHILADELPHIA—Even today, when few people except professional
sailors and fishermen are compelled to step foot on a boat,
shipwreck is a powerful fear. Drowning may be a relatively
painless way to go, but the idea of a cold, lonely death in a
howling sea can make the most dedicated landlubber’s spine
tingle. With thousands of miles of coastline, and a burgeoning
immigrant population arriving by boat, that fear was vividly
felt by millions of Americans in the 19th century, when
shipwreck was not just something one read about in Shakespeare,
but a common and terrifying disaster, claiming hundreds of lives
every year. In 1884, Winslow Homer painted a large and dynamic
canvas that played on the fear and fascination of maritime
disaster. The Life Line depicted the rescue of an unconscious
woman by a heroic male figure whose face is obscu