Three boys and a man share a catboat that heels hard under a fair wind. Spray catches the light; the sail is taut; the horizon is a clean, almost empty line. Winslow Homer’s Breezing Up (A Fair Wind) (1873–1876) looks at first like a summer outing off the New England coast. Look longer and the picture rearranges itself: an anchor sits where a figure once sat in the bow, and the youngest boy — not the man in red — holds the tiller. Critics at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876 already read that swap as hope and a forward gaze for a nation still recovering from the Civil War. Quick facts Artist: Winslow Homer (1836–1910) Date: 1873–1876 (inscribed lower right HOMER 1876 ) Medium: Oil on canvas (61.5 × 97 cm / 24 3/16 × 38 3/16 in.) Collection: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (1943.13.1; Gift of the W. L. and May T. Mellon Foundation; West Building, Gallery M68) Notable fact: Homer reworked an earlier composition...