Realism Abroad

Winslow Homer

Snap the Whip

1872

Oil on canvas, 30.5 × 50.8 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Barefoot boys play a rough chain game outside a red country schoolhouse.

• This is the smaller of two versions; the larger is at the Butler Institute of American Art.
• The Met reads the linked boys as a hopeful image of the reunited nation.
• A schoolyard game, observed, becomes a picture of national memory as America grew more urban.

Image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York · Public Domain (Met Open Access)